A Million, Two, One
by With My Radio
Summary: "Good morning, thanks for the amazing night! By the way, I'm kind of a big deal, and I'll be very irritated if I read about it while skimming tabloids in the checkout line." Will doesn't get the basic theory behind one-night stands. *Will/OFC*
1. Summerview

**Note**: This is a _Glee_ story only in that some characters from _Glee_ are in it. Will Schuester is the hero, and all the _Glee_ kids make an appearance, but it's written from the OFC's perspective, and the story is more about her than it is about her+Will. If that's not your cup of tea, I'm in the process of rewriting the whole story from Will's perspective; that story is called **Willpower** and you can search for it or click on my name to find it listed. You do not need to have read this story for **Willpower** to make sense, and in fact will probably enjoy it more if you stop reading right now, and especially do not read the extended summary for this story.

xxx

**Title**: A Million, Two, One  
**Author**: With My Radio  
**TV Show**: _Glee_  
**Spoilers**: Through Season One, Episode 13 (Sectionals)  
**Pairing**: Will/OFC  
**Categories**: Romance, Angst, Hurt/Comfort  
**Rating**: The highest you've got. This story is not for children, and not just because of the sex.  
**Extended Summary**: Norah Castle's life is perfect. As a triple-platinum recording artist known the world over, she has everything she ever wished for and more. If she sometimes feels that it's not enough, she ignores it, because what else could there be? When a personal tragedy occurs in her hometown, she grudgingly returns to Lima, OH, dispensing with her stage name in the interest of privacy. "Disguised" as Honor Castlereagh, the girl who ran away to Los Angeles and never came back, she meets someone who just might force her to face her past, face herself, and want everything she never thought to wish for...

xxx

**1**

The first thing I heard upon entering the bar almost made me change my mind. I wanted a drink, needed a drink, but I wasn't sure if I wanted/needed one badly enough to deal with that song. I've never been able to escape it, even to this day. No matter where I go, someone will eventually advise me (their voice painfully off-key) to _Take the 5 to the 805/Exit at Mira Mesa Drive/And you're almost there/I'm almost there…_Sometimes I regret the fact that the directions to my old apartment rhymed so perfectly, or regret the fact that I made them rhyme, put them to music, recorded them and became a star with them because it all means that I will always, always remember how to get somewhere I don't want to go. That night of all nights I needed no reminder, and I was thisclose to leaving.

But then it hit me: the man singing my song was brilliant. The bar was nearly empty, and karaoke night was obviously a complete bust, but he stood alone on their pitiful excuse for a stage and owned it like he was in a stadium and just… I can't explain it. He sang my song like he understood it better than I ever did, sang it like he knew it, sang it like he was inside of it. The way he wrapped his smooth tenor voice around every word, he somehow made them sharp and cold and used them to hurt me more than I had ever used them to hurt myself. And it was so strangely appropriate, so strangely perfect, because I had written it about my mother and here I was, back in Lima, for the specific purpose of burying her.

It suddenly seemed like fate to me, and I wanted to kiss my younger self for rhyming those stupid directions and deciding it sounded pretty good, maybe people would listen to it. They'd inadvertently directed me to the perfect distraction, directed him to take the stage and sing out his sorrow, directed me to comfort him and thereby myself. By which I mean I decided on the spot that I would seduce this man, take him to my mother's house and hope that he would do things to me that would make me forget myself for awhile, things that were possibly illegal in Ohio (it is a fairly backwards state, after all). He certainly looked capable of it.

His skin was pale and golden, his body slim yet cut, his face a harsh, beautiful combination of planes and angles, thin lips, high cheekbones. I could easily imagine myself touching him, caressing the deep dimples framing his mouth and burying my hand in his softly curling hair. The point is that he would have drawn my eyes eventually, and once that happened I wouldn't have been able to look away. In all likelihood I would have decided to seduce him anyway; his brilliant rendition of _Summerview_ (bane of my existence) simply made it possible for me to dispense with all my other criteria.

At this point I should probably add that I'm not completely full of myself. It's not like I believed I could just point to him, make a come-hither gesture and he'd react by come-hithering. I will say that I'm well-known and reasonably easy on the eyes, which would have made it a slam dunk, _if_ I'd entered the bar as the glamorous singer I usually am. Norah Castle could make a come-hither gesture and the entire bar would react by immediately come-hithering. But I was in disguise and doing my best to keep a low profile; I had no desire to be stalked by an Ohian (Ohio-an? Well, someone from Ohio anyway) paparazzo, if such a thing existed, who would snap some pictures which would inevitably end up 1) making me look fat, and 2) on the cover of some tabloid along with the headline _Norah Castle's Private Pain_.

Hello, it's not private if it's a banner headline on a glossy magazine, but I know from personal experience that it's still just as painful, and my desire to avoid such a disaster made this new project a challenge. Could I seduce this gorgeous, talented man as cabbie hat-wearing, glasses-having bare-faced Honor Castlereagh, and could I do it without him realizing my true identity (which is a weird way to put it, come to think of it, because Honor Castlereagh is the name I was born with and when did it start to feel like an alias)? It was brilliant; I was distracted already.

**TBC**


	2. Come Hither

**2**

All of this makes me sound very jaded, very calculating, and I suppose I am to an extent. In my line of work, it's impossible not to be. But this decision wasn't like that. It was just me, alone and lonely and so sick of the thoughts chasing around and around and around in my head, searching for a way to turn them off, and really you'd understand if you'd been there, seen his face, heard his voice. I cannot imagine the kind of willpower it would have taken me to walk away. More than I had.

So I didn't. I sat down at the bar and ordered a drink and listened to him, watched him as he brought my song to an emotional crescendo and then to a lilting close, and tried to strategize. My success with this was minimal, distracted as I was, and in the end fate took care of it for me by ensuring he came and sat next to me. Not on purpose, or at least I don't think so, but either way the outcome was the same, and I couldn't have orchestrated a more perfect setup.

I panicked internally for a moment, running through my disguise. Hat? Check. Glasses? Check. No makeup? Check (pity, really). So far no one had recognized me, but then I'd only spoken to the bartender so that didn't mean much. At this moment, I almost changed my mind (_Am I insane? But I want him. What if he recognizes me? But I want him. What if he sells his story to the tabloids? But I __**want **__him…) _As I was debating with myself, I glanced over and noticed the way the light limned his profile. He was breathtaking, I am not even kidding, but that wasn't enough to affect my decision. No, for the first time I realized that the way he'd been singing my song, the anguish and grief that had pierced me so deeply, had been an expression of his own feelings; I could see them on his face, just below the surface of his apparently neutral expression. And just like that, I made up my mind.

"You were great up there," I said, smiling.

He turned to me, and the full intensity of his eyes, of the emotion in them, struck me without warning. Looking into them, I didn't just hurt for myself, I hurt for him too. I could see the effort it took for him to mold his lips into a smile, but once it was in place it almost seemed genuine and I was impressed. "Thanks. It's been a… Kind of a crazy week."

I nodded. "I know all about those. Can I buy you a drink? You look like you could use one."

"I've had too many," he answered, then added, "or not enough. Both. Yes, I'll take a drink, but I'm buying. How does that sound?"

I smiled at him, no real effort required. "That sounds perfect."

"I saw you when you walked in," he began after ordering our drinks, "I thought it was funny that you look so much like Norah Castle when I was singing that song… You probably get that a lot."

My stomach clenched uncomfortably with nervousness and guilt, and I reminded myself that withholding information isn't the same thing as lying. "Yeah," I answered, "I do get that a lot." Which was completely true, of course; I get it all the damn time.

"You should be flattered, she's beautiful. And her voice! And she can write… I could go on and on about her." His smile didn't look forced at all now, and I was suddenly in the strange position of being jealous of myself.

"Sounds like you're taken, maybe I'm buying the wrong guy a drink," I teased.

The smile slid from his face, and he looked down at his hands. "Maybe you are," he responded quietly. "Or would be, if you were buying."

Interesting. I decided not to say anything, see if he'd give any more information, but the silence began to hang heavy between us. "I'm sorry," I said finally. "Did I say something wrong?"

"What?" He looked up at me like a man just coming awake, and I realized that his thoughts had been far away from the bar and the two of us. "No, no. It's not your fault, I'm just… You know. It's been a-"

"Crazy week, I know," I finished. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't know, seems like pouring out all my troubles might not be the most effective seduction technique," he answered wryly. "Not that I'm trying to… You know what I mean."

I didn't, really, just hoped he meant the opposite of what he'd said, but I matched his tone with the twist of my lips, an almost-smile. "Let's just assume I'm already seduced, shall we? Tell me about it. Might make you feel better." _Might take my mind off myself._

He stared at me intently, searching for something, and for a moment I was afraid again, ostensibly that he'd see through my disguise, but really I think I was just afraid because I should have been, because I could tell he was dangerous to me. At any rate, he just pursed his lips and nodded. "I left my wife a week ago," he announced, and I glanced automatically to his left hand. There was no ring, but I could make out a pale line, an inverted shadow where a ring had been until very recently.

"For good or just for awhile?" I asked, feeling a little put off. It hadn't occurred to me that he was a married man, and for all I knew he could be faking for sympathy. But no; I remembered the way he sang, and the devastation hiding in his face, and I believed him.

"I think it's for good," he said, and then stopped like he'd surprised himself. "I think it's for good. Oh, god. I didn't even… I didn't realize it until now, until it was the only thing I could say."

"What happened?" I placed my hand on his shoulder, feeling his warmth and wanting to enjoy it but working hard to make my touch comforting rather than flirtatious.

He gave me a defeated look. "It's a long story."

I wanted to laugh but didn't want him to think I was laughing at him. "I have no pressing engagements at present."

He took a deep gulp of his beer, either for the taste or the courage, and considered his words carefully for several moments. "We were going to have a baby," he whispered finally. "She told me we were going to have a baby, and I thought… I was so happy. I've always wanted kids. I'm a teacher, actually, and I couldn't stop imagining how wonderful it would be to have my own to teach."

At first I was distracted, imagining the kind of havoc that would have ensued if he'd ever been my teacher, but then the overall impact of his statement hit me. I looked at him with a mixture of horror and pity, telling myself not to ask the obvious question because surely the answer was obvious too. In the end I couldn't help myself. "Did she… I mean, did something happen with the baby?"

He laughed suddenly, a bitter sound without humor. "Yeah, something happened… It didn't exist." I caught my breath at his statement, utterly shocked by the cruelty of it. And this is coming from someone who works in the recording industry; my standards for that kind of thing are understandably high. A lie of that magnitude… I couldn't imagine the kind of person who could do that to anyone, let alone someone they loved.

"She said she was afraid she was losing me, that the baby was the only thing keeping us together," he continued, "but it's funny. I'd never have left her… I'd have stayed with her and tried, and tried, and tried, because I loved who she used to be and I wanted to feel like that again. But the way she lied, what she lied about..."

Raising his beer to his lips once more, he drained it, then stared down at the bottle like a gypsy reading tea leaves, desperately trying to see the future. It was an impulse I could understand. Sometimes I would stare into an empty bottle and wonder if there was even a future to see. I didn't share this, however, because it's not the kind of thing you say out loud. Instead I turned to him and touched his hand. It was long and elegant, artistic somehow, and I could feel the bones and tendons under his smooth skin as I stroked it. He felt both powerful and fragile, as though his bones were hollow, as though if I grasped hard enough they would break. But there was heat there too.

"Do you want to get out of here?" I murmured, moving my hand to the underside of his wrist, caressing him with clear intent.

Our eyes met, and his were dark and tortured and just like mine, really, just like mine if I bothered looking in a mirror. I wondered if he could see that, then thought it didn't matter. "Yes," he breathed, expression serious. "Yes I do."

**TBC**


	3. x Just Come

**Notes**: Please skip this chapter if you're offended by, or too young to read, **graphic adult content**. The story will still make sense, I promise.

**3**

He had a car but was clearly too drunk to drive; I'd already arranged to have a cab pick me up at one a.m. When it arrived, he held the door open like a gentleman, then slid in after me. We sat close, pressed together shoulder to shoulder, arm to arm, hip to hip, thigh to thigh, and I could feel a flush of desire at our contact. I still held his hand, rubbing my thumb gently at the base of his wrist, feeling his pulse slowly climb and hearing his breathing match it, but we didn't touch in any other way. There was no mindless groping, not that I would have said no. It just seemed unnecessary somehow, and maybe a bit cheap. One night stands aren't exactly sacred, but I knew I wanted this to be more than a quick fuck in the backseat of a cab (in OHIO, for chrissake). There was so much potential energy between us, too much to waste on something so brief and unsatisfying.

The cab took us the short distance to my mother's house, my former childhood home, and now my burden. It was convenient anyway, considering that there was no hotel in Lima that could have handled the type of security I usually required when I traveled. But as he paid the fare (again, like a gentleman) and I searched for the house keys with only slightly clumsy fingers, I was thankful that he was there with me. He was a stranger, yes, but I did not want to be in this mausoleum of a house without company. Too many memories, too many ghosts.

I consciously kept them all at bay as I led him up the stairs, consciously pushed all thoughts of the night I'd stormed down them and out the door and my mother had told me never to come back from my mind. Instead I concentrated on him, gripping his hand hard enough that it might have been painful, except that he gripped me back with just as much strength. We were both tightly coiled, tightly wound, and I imagined what this night would be like when we both came undone. The tension between us made me realize that something that had started as a kind of game was now completely serious. Again I was afraid, not of him, not of violence, but of myself, not that it stopped me. Passing the doors to my old room, which was now used for storage, and my mother's room, which was now… Empty, I brought him to the guest room at the end of the hall. It was decently furnished and completely impersonal, almost like a hotel room, and that made it perfect. Besides, I knew I'd ever be able to set foot into the other two rooms again.

The second the door closed behind us we were in each other's arms, his embrace tight and enveloping, his mouth hot and insistent on mine. I was somewhat shorter than him, and pushed myself up on my tiptoes to get some leverage, to force my lips even harder against his. Our mouths opened at the same time, as if by agreement, and we invaded each other with our tongues, nipped at each other with our teeth. It was almost violent, the way we were kissing, almost like we were some ravenous devouring things. Cannibals might kiss like that; I never had, but tonight it felt right, necessary even. His mouth was all silky heat and sharp, desperate flavor, and it was intoxicating.

He dragged a hand through my hair, sending shivers down my spine, and my hat fell to the ground, not that I much cared. Then he buried his fingers in the waves at the base of my neck, angling my head to better consume me, holding me firm against him. It was dark and exciting, the strength with which he was controlling me, the mingled pleasure and pain of what our lips were doing together. I certainly wasn't passive, kissing him as deeply as he was kissing me, grabbing at his shirt as though I could literally rip it off, and believe me I wanted to. But I settled for yanking at the buttons, jerking them through their button holes with the same violence that characterized our kiss. When I was finished, he released his hold on me and removed his mouth from mine so that I could push the fabric down his well-toned arms and to the floor. His undershirt followed immediately thereafter.

It was dark in the guest room, the only light coming through the window courtesy of a streetlight outside, but there was enough of it to see the details and contours of his body. His chest was lightly muscled and covered with a sheen of sweat, rising and falling quickly, his body trim like a dancer's but with each muscle very clearly defined, and I ran my hands along him, exploring the smooth skin and the hard flesh beneath, reveling in the different textures. He growled low in his throat as I scraped my nails across his nipples and gripped my wrists, using his superior strength to push me toward the bed.

The backs of my legs made contact with its edge, and he forced me down on it, pinning me beneath him. I could feel the hardness between his legs and ground myself against him, recognizing the bare beginnings of pleasure from that point of contact and moaning softly as he pressed his lips to my ear, kissing and licking and sucking. "Don't make me wait," he rasped, and the combination of his husky voice, roughened with desire, and the puffs of air that accompanied it, sent a bolt of pure heat shooting straight to my core.

"I don't want to," I gasped out, the words turning into another moan as he sucked hard on my neck, directly above my pulse. His hands were all over me, one searching beneath my shirt to stroke my breasts, the other pushing at the hem of my skirt. I fumbled with his belt even as he pinched first one nipple and then the other, nearly distracting me with the sensations he caused. Then my skirt was around my waist and his fingers were rubbing me through my panties, which I could tell were absolutely soaked. The fabric slid across my clit and I cried out more in frustration than anything else, because it wasn't enough pressure, enough anything. He made an amused, pleased kind of sound, pushed the silk and lace aside and penetrated me with one finger, catching his breath perhaps at the ease of it.

"You're so wet," he groaned, no trace of amusement now, adding another finger, stretching me as he forced them both deep. He was rubbing some secret spot inside me that sent deep waves of pleasure through my body, and I almost thought it was possible for me to come from that pressure alone. "So wet and tight."

His words, his voice, his fingers were all driving me insane. I continued to toy with his belt, finally mastering my fingers to the extent that they remembered how to unbuckle it, and I unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans as quickly as possible. Then his cock was in my hand, long and thick and inconceivably hard, and I stroked him firmly, rubbing my thumb across the head and feeling the seeping moisture there, hearing him hiss with pleasure. "I want you inside me," I said, voice low, and it was somehow both a desperate plea and an insistent demand.

"Yes," he agreed, lips moving against my throat. "God yes. I'm going to fuck you so hard."

Those coarse words spoken in his smooth voice filled me with heat, ratcheted up my desire, and I hoped that he meant what he said, because I wanted it like that. "Yes," I echoed fervently, and he withdrew his fingers from my body in order to position himself where I wanted him most. He slid the head of his cock along my cunt, teasing my clit with it, and I used the leverage of my feet still on the floor to raise my hips desperately, begging as much with that gesture as I had with my words.

Then I felt him press inside me, the thickness of his flesh stretching me far more than his fingers had, until it was almost painful but in the best possible way. He moved deeper and deeper until he was fully imbedded within me, and I was amazed that there was that much room. "Oh _god_," I whispered, nearly incoherent. "Please. _Please_."

He lifted his head from the crook of my neck, stroked the hair away from my face with one hand and looked into my eyes. His expression was tense, as though he were fighting for control, and maybe he was. "Please what?" he demanded before leaning down to press his mouth to mine. The kiss was strangely soft, strangely chaste, considering how deeply he was buried inside me and how harsh his voice had been.

"Please fuck me," I breathed once he'd relinquished my lips, and before I could even comprehend the fact that he was moving he was gripping my forearms, holding me down as he steadily withdrew himself then thrust back home. The pleasure was nearly unbearable as he moved, and I could feel every inch of him as he slid in and out. It still hurt, but I liked it, I wanted it, because it hurt with the kind of pain that was closer to transcendence than anything else.

Releasing my arms, he pulled on my hair with one hand, leaving my throat even more vulnerable to him, and he took full advantage of that fact. I dug my fingernails into his shoulders, making him groan and curse underneath his breath and increase the force of his thrusts. At the same time he pressed a finger against my clit, touching it directly and filling me with pure, raw sensation. That sensation coiled into ecstasy when combined with the way he was pounding himself into me, so intense and hard. I could feel my body tighten around him as I came, crying out wordlessly, wishing I knew his name, utterly suffused with pleasure.

His mouth found mine, silencing me, and he pushed into me again as his muscles tensed. He made a quiet, desperate sound in the back of his throat, a clear plea for me to do something, anything to push him over the edge. I met his tongue with mine, sucking it deep and biting at his lips. With a final gasp he shuddered in my arms.

**TBC**


	4. Thesaurus

_For _Greys has become my life_ and _christyZ_. Thank you for your reviews; I'm so glad at least two people are reading! More than I expected, honestly. I'll do my level best to make this story worthy of your time._

**4**

He remained there, on top of me, inside of me, kissing me for several minutes more, but his mouth was no longer so urgent. It was soft and gentle and tender, and I found myself enjoying those kisses as much as the others we had shared. I was surrounded by him, tasting only his mouth, inhaling only his scent, and it was, for lack of a better word, beautiful (that I would even have such a thought is still incomprehensible, but even worse is the fact that it was true). After a long time he moved off of me, and I felt somehow bereft without his body joined to mine and covering me. Still, I wasn't cold, and I wondered why until I realized with a start that I was still completely clothed. How we'd managed everything we'd managed without completely undressing, I had no idea, nor did I understand why I'd felt as though we were naked. It made no sense but I was in no condition to analyze anything, so I ignored the questions and stood to take care of the situation.

"Where are you going?" he asked, voice drowsy in a way that was almost as sexy as its previous harshness, barely opening his eyes to watch me move across the room.

"I'm not," I said, "just changing. I can't sleep in this. And you can't sleep in that," I added.

"No, I suppose I can't," he agreed, sitting up and running his hands through his disordered curls. He looked sated and disheveled, and so heartbreakingly handsome. I could hardly believe he'd actually let me touch him. "Come here, let me undress you."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise, uncertain as to whether or not I had the energy for another round just yet, but approached him nonetheless. He smiled crookedly, standing up and kicking off his jeans and boxer briefs at the same time. He threaded his fingers through my hair, kissed me briefly, then took the hem of my shirt in his hands. "Lift your arms," he prodded, and I did, shivering as he whisked the fabric over my head and I felt the cool air on my skin.

He skimmed his hands down my sides, from my ribcage to my hips, and I shivered again. "Cold?" he asked, smiling as he took in the sight of me in my black lace bra and skirt.

"No," I answered, because it was true, and the night air had nothing to do with why I was shivering.

He nodded and slid his hands around the back of my waist, unzipping my skirt with ease and nudging it down to join my blouse on the floor. His hands traveled south just slightly, caressing my ass. Then he stepped back to look at me, and I could feel his eyes skimming over my body just as clearly as I'd felt his physical touch mere moments before.

Without speaking I raised my arms and unhooked my bra. I'd worn my prettiest one intentionally, hoping someone would see it, and I was glad he was getting a chance to enjoy the display even if the fireworks were over for the night. Smiling, I let it fall gently forward, releasing my breasts. My nipples hardened immediately due to the cool of the room and the heat of his gaze. I also removed my panties- totally ruined, by the way- shimmying them down past my hips and then stepping out of them.

"You're so beautiful," he murmured, looking intently at me, and I wanted to return the compliment. In the pale light of the moon and streetlamp he looked like some kind of god sent to tempt mortals by his mere existence, his body as perfect as anything a Renaissance sculptor ever created (again, incomprehensible that I should think so; again, impossibly true). Before I could put this thought into words, he turned down the comforter and sheets, which were somehow only slightly rumpled. "Come lie down with me."

I crawled into the bed and scooted over so he could slide in next to me. He pulled me into his arms, his fingers tracing lightly up and down my stomach. "That was…" he began, pausing to think before continuing "I don't know what that was. I don't think there are words for what that was."

"There aren't," I conceded, "so I'm just going to go with _amazing_. Is that okay?"

He grinned. "Well for me at least it falls short, but maybe it's the best we can do."

"I'll check my thesaurus in the morning," I teased, and he chuckled.

There was a long pause, and I wondered if he'd fallen asleep until he spoke again. "I don't think I've ever been this exhausted," he murmured, hands still stroking me. It felt good, and maybe could have felt arousing if I hadn't been just as tired as he claimed to be. But I was, so it was merely soothing, and at the moment that was even better.

"Me too," I answered. "You can stay the night if you like. There's no one else here."

I took the fact that he'd fallen fast asleep in the middle of my offer as acceptance of it.

**TBC**


	5. Logic

**5**

I am not a morning person, but my body thinks I am. The second a ray of sunlight touches my skin, flits across my face, I'm wide awake, and why oh why was dawn so early? My eyes flew open in the barely-daylight, and I was completely disoriented, wondering for a moment where I was (what hotel, what city, what concert date) and whether it was dusk or dawn. Then everything about the last 24, 48, 72 hours came flooding back, and all the feelings I'd been fighting to repress came along for the ride. Don't get me wrong, the man who lay in bed with me, whose name I still didn't know, had been the one bright spot in a thoroughly depressing week, but he was sleeping soundly rather than distracting me with his mouth and hands. While the thought of teasing him into consciousness had its appeal, it seemed unfair to him, and besides he looked so adorable with his face relaxed and open, a bristle of stubble showing on his jaw. He looked younger, more… Innocent. He looked like the type of kid who wouldn't even know the f-word, let alone how to use it to such incredible effect in the proper circumstances.

Anyway, it was easier than I'd have expected to resist waking him. Last night, he'd managed to take me out of myself, and I hoped I'd done the same for him. But what we'd done to each other, for each other, hadn't undone all our mistakes and regrets, much as I wished it had. And now, in the rosy early morning light, I was coming dangerously close to thinking about things I had sworn I would push aside for as long as possible. Mistakes. Regrets. There wasn't time for them, not when it was my responsibility to handle all the details of my mother's death. The funeral had been simple enough, executed with a ruthless efficiency I'd forgotten I possessed ("Put the body in a box and put the box in the ground, how hard can it be?"), and thank god it was over. This morning I had to meet with her attorney, however, and to do that I had to remain focused. Composed. All the memories and ghosts clamoring for my attention would ruin my composure if I let them, and so I wouldn't. Couldn't, which amounted to the same thing.

With all of this resolved, I slid out of bed, creeping quietly towards the door, pausing only to grab the collared shirt I'd stripped off my distraction last night. I needed to use the restroom and maybe shower, and then I needed to figure out how to get my guest out before my mother's lawyer arrived. Turning the doorknob, I held the door in place before opening it, allowing it to swing inward silently. This is the best technique for this kind of thing, in case you didn't know, as evidenced by the fact that the man in my bed didn't stir, and I closed the door behind me in the same covert way before padding down the hallway.

My first glance in the bathroom mirror seemed to reveal that I looked halfway decent, at least until I realized that I'd tucked my glasses into my purse at some point last night and I wasn't wearing my contact lenses. My vision is horrible, and without some form of correction the entire world, not to mention my face, looked smooth and beautiful, like an impressionist watercolor or a love scene filmed in very soft focus. Leaning close to the mirror, nearly pressing my nose against the glass, showed me that actually I looked like hell, which I suppose was only to be expected. Yesterday I'd felt like hell, last night being the exception, and today… Well, I felt alright. Relaxed, sated, aching in a good way, but beneath all of that there was an edge of panic, fear that I wouldn't be able to hold myself together, fear that I'd just come apart and never reassemble.

No. I'd already decided I wasn't going to do this now, so I didn't. Instead, I hopped in the shower and scrubbed myself down, strangely unhappy to wash the scent of sex from my body. He had smelled incredible, like cologne and sweat and heat, and I liked the smell of him on me. But that was kind of weird, so I used my favorite body cleanser, and washed my hair, and brushed my teeth and smoothed on some tinted moisturizer to make me look halfway human. There were marks all over my body, bruises on my wrists and forearms, scrapes from his stubble and teeth along my neck, not to mention the visual reminder of his lips over my pulse, sucking hard. Looking at them, I smiled, because they along with the way my body hurt proved that last night had happened. My smile didn't dim as I relived it in my mind, and I toweled my hair dry on autopilot, distracted by the mental images. Strangely, those images focused on his face, his expression, the look in his eyes, everything other than the more primal details of our night together, and that really should have been a warning sign but I'm stupid so it wasn't.

Once my hair was damp rather than dripping wet, I pulled on the white button up shirt I'd snatched from the floor. It was big enough that it skimmed my curves, long enough that it was at least as modest as the skirt I'd worn last night, but I only bothered buttoning a few buttons. There was a nice business suit waiting for me in my suitcase downstairs, one perfectly suited (oh, I kill me) for my meeting with the attorney, but it wasn't exactly the kind of outfit most men wanted to wake up to.

I made my way back to the guestroom, wishing that I had orange juice or pancakes or something to offer the man waiting for me- that was traditional, right?- and suddenly nervous about facing him in the light of day. My first order of business would be to find my glasses, because they were nine tenths of my disguise and without them this morning would be even more awkward than necessary. (_"Good morning, thanks for the amazing sex! By the way, I'm kind of a big deal, and I'll be very irritated if I read about last night while indifferently skimming the tabloids in the supermarket checkout line. Okay, I have a subscription, and anyway my assistant does all my shopping, but the point still stands."_) Luckily I spotted my clutch lying forgotten against the wall a few feet from the guestroom door; I hadn't even remembered dropping it. Glasses in place, world in focus, I opened the door.

He was sitting up, blinking in disorientation (much as I had when I'd first awoken) and he was at least as beautiful in the brightening daylight as he'd been in the dark. No, even more so, which I didn't think could be possible until I saw that it was. I could see golden strands in his light brown hair, hints of green and gold in his hazel eyes, a noticeable cleft in his chin that I'd somehow failed to notice, and it all robbed me of my power of speech for a second.

"Hey," he murmured with a hesitant smile. There was new color in his cheeks, and I'd have called it a blush if he'd been a sixteen year old girl, but since he wasn't I simply noted the phenomenon and didn't try to label it.

"Hey," I echoed, smiling. "Sleep well?"

He let out a small chuckle. "Like the dead."

"I'm not surprised," I said, my smile becoming wry as I thought of how exhausted we'd both been and why.

"Right," he answered, and the color in his cheeks intensified. "Look, I… I mean, I remember last night-" (as his embarrassment clearly showed) "-but some… Details are a bit fuzzy. Did I… Well, did I ever get your name? Because if I did I've forgotten it. I'm so sorry, I keep thinking and thinking but I can't…" He trailed off, looking as mortified as ever.

I laughed in genuine delight, wondering how he could possibly be worried about a little thing like that after the obscene things he'd said and done to me last night. It filled me with an entirely alien sensation, a kind of fondness I'd never felt before, and I didn't understand it at all.

"It's okay," I assured him, moving to sit on the edge of the bed. "I don't think we ever got to the name exchange." And I hadn't thought he could get any redder, but he did.

"Oh, god." He rubbed his hand over his face. "I don't know… I mean, I've never… I guess everyone says this, but I've never done anything like this before."

"I wouldn't know what everyone says," I responded, voice prim. "I've never done anything like this before."

He smiled at me, still shy, still embarrassed, and I found it… Endearing, I suppose. It was strange, because last night he had been many things, most of them intense and dark and thrilling, but in the light of day _endearing_ was really the best word for his smiles and behavior.

"Well then," he said finally, "what are the rules? Are there rules?"

"I think it's the kind of thing where we get to make our own. Name exchange or no? It's all up to you," I told him, and I meant it, or thought I did. If he wanted complete anonymity I believed I could give it to him.

"I'm Will," he said quickly, reaching out to shake my hand.

I met his wide hazel eyes and grinned at the incongruity of the gesture. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Honor, and yes, it's a name." Seriously, it is.

"I think it's lovely," he murmured, holding my gaze and my hand, stroking my fingers with his.

"It's a family thing," I offered, though I'm still not quite sure why. It was a dangerous direction to head in, as I had no desire to discuss my family, and I could tell he was curious now. I wracked my brain for something else to say, some kind of distraction. "Are you hungry? Wait, scratch that… Even if you are, there's literally nothing in the kitchen." I had called a cleaning service from LA, and they had done a very thorough job, thank god, because as I understood it she'd had dinner all laid out and… No. Not going to think about it.

"It's okay," he responded, his voice becoming slightly hesitant as he added "We could always go get breakfast. If you want, I mean."

This is the point where alarm bells began to go off in my head, and in case you're not keeping count that's about 15 paragraphs too late. I can't really explain what frightened me; it was either the way I immediately wanted to agree to his suggestion, or the fact that he seemed completely different from the man I'd brought back last night. That man had been perfect one-night stand material. Will was… Not. And I didn't know what that made him perfect for. I just knew I didn't want to find out, couldn't afford to find out. Logically, this meant breakfast was a bad idea, as was further interaction of _any_ kind. (_But I __**want**__ him._)

"And if I'm not hungry?" I asked as I approached the bed, taking his hand and placing it on the placket of his shirt, biting my lip suggestively, and I am obviously not a creature of logic.

He looked at me with another of those _endearing_ shy smiles, toyed with a button. "Then I'm not, either."

Well then.

**TBC**


	6. x Self Sacrifice

_For _Dementedx_, _christyZ_, _traceit_, and _Valintinas_. Thank you so much for your kind reviews and encouragement! It's very motivational. I hope you're all 18 years or older, because _this chapter contains **graphic adult content**_. _If such content offends you, or you're too young to read it, please skip ahead. The story will still make sense, I promise.

**6**

I leaned over the bed, kissing him gently on the lips, and he returned the same level of pressure, making the kiss soft and slow and completely unlike the raw merging of our mouths that had occurred last night. His hands came up to carefully cradle my face, and he held me that way for a long time, building the intensity with each passing minute as our tongues met and tangled. At some point his hands slid down my body to grasp my waist, and he pulled me down so that I was splayed on top of him, pressed against him nearly from head to toe. He was so warm, and it felt so good to touch him, so I did. Twining my fingers in his hair, I trailed them down to caress his back, arms, shoulders, chest. There hadn't been time last night for the full exploration his body clearly warranted. Obviously I needed to rectify that situation immediately.

Pulling away from him slightly, I dropped tiny kisses on his face, eyelids, cheeks, jaw. I pulled his head back, revealing the strong column of his throat, and moved my lips slowly down it, licking and sucking much as he had the night before, though without the violence. His breathing became heavy as I scraped my teeth lightly against a pulse point, pressed my lips to the dip in his collarbone then traced it with my tongue, followed his clavicle over to his shoulder, nibbled softly as the crook of his neck. The throbbing of his pulse was practically audible, and I could feel it against my mouth as I teased him.

He attempted to pull me up to meet his lips again, but I resisted. I wanted to taste him and drive him at least as crazy as he had driven me. Message received, he dropped his hands, running his fingers through my hair and caressing my shoulders as I moved slowly downward to flick my tongue against his nipples. This is a good move, incidentally, somewhat unexpected, but it's not always effective; I remembered the way he'd gasped when I'd touched him there last night, and I wasn't disappointed in his reaction now. His breath caught and his hands tightened momentarily, so I did it again, slowly building up gentle suction until he was writhing and panting, making desperate little moans as his fingers became more and more tangled in my hair.

I discovered the rest of his upper body this same way, fingers stroking lightly, lips skimming across his taut, smooth skin, tasting salt, pausing every time he made an encouraging sound or inhaled in a sharp, encouraging way. His inner arm, the crook of his elbow, the spot directly above his hipbones, each was especially sensitive and I felt a sense of achievement as I learned these facts. It was intensified by the fact that I had made him nearly incoherent, which was really only fair but also wasn't enough. What I wanted, really wanted, was to make him forget himself completely, his problems, his disappointments, his name… Everything, because if I could do that for him it would help me forget myself.

My hands drifted down, nails scratching lightly at his inner thighs even as I kissed his lower abdomen, and I could feel his stomach muscles tense under his skin as he held his breath. I enjoyed the feeling of power, of having him at my mercy, because I knew what he wanted and I liked the fact that I could decide whether or not to give it to him. Not that the decision was especially hard to make; I was nearly as incoherent with desire as he was, intoxicated by the taste of him, the feel of his whole body coming alive under my hands, and I wanted more of that, more of everything.

Carefully, I took his cock in my hand, marveling at the velvety texture and the way something could be so smooth, so soft and yet so unbelievably hard. I stroked him with a firm touch, base to tip, and now that I really thought about the mechanics of this I realized it was going to be something of a challenge. But I thrive in the face of adversity, or whatever, and felt myself more than equal to the task. Leaning forward, I placed my open mouth on the head, neither sucking nor kissing but just letting him feel the wet heat. He groaned loudly, and I looked up to meet his eyes. There was naked hunger on his face, lust and longing and maybe a tinge of disbelief, and I smiled coyly.

"Is this what you want?" I asked, and the low, husky tone in my voice was unexpected and unfeigned.

He laughed breathlessly, as though to say _You're kidding, right?_ "God yes. Yes, yes, yes."

I didn't have the heart to tease him any further, didn't feel the need to make him literally beg, and I smiled again before twirling my tongue around the base of his head, then taking the very tip into my mouth and sucking gently. Groaning, he placed his hands on the back of my head, buried his fingers in my hair, and I expected him to push me down, control me, which actually I usually hated. It was just so presumptuous, but I was prepared to forgive him for it. Luckily, I didn't have to. After a moment he released his hold and gripped the sheets instead, and I almost laughed because it reminded me so much of his other gentlemanly acts (though this one required much greater self-sacrifice than paying for our cab) and that thought was amusing. But laughter in this specific situation would undoubtedly give him a complex for the rest of his life, so I refrained and even made a concession. I lifted my head and reestablished eye-contact, took his hand and returned it to its former position. "Show me what you like."

His fingers tightened almost involuntarily in my hair, but there was a shadow of uncertainty on his face. "Don't want to hurt you," he murmured, and though this word should be completely out of place in this situation, it was really fucking endearing.

"I can take it," I assured him, brazen.

The shadow was gone. "You think so?" he challenged, and the man from the night before was back. His expression was wicked, his voice was dangerous, and somewhere inside I was relieved, because _endearing_ was much more threatening to me than _dangerous_.

"Oh yes." I was confident in my response.

"Then take it," he growled, placing his other hand in my hair too, and slowly forcing me down, all the way down, until I could feel him in the back of my throat. The entire time our gazes had been locked on one another's, and I reveled in his almost tortured expression even as I imagined the erotic picture I made for him.

"This," he said harshly, holding me down and never wavering in his stare. "This is what I like."

As you might have noticed, I have some submissive tendencies, which he was certainly capable of exploiting. He set our pace, set our rhythm, guided me up and down his length and to be honest I think I enjoyed it at least as much as he did. His broken moans, curses commands and blasphemies, his fingers clutching desperately at my hair, were intensely arousing, and I could feel the warmth between my legs spreading throughout my body, bringing every nerve ending I possessed to attention. After a few minutes his movements became erratic and more forceful; I could tell by the look on his face that he was very close, and I knew that if I lowered my hand and touched myself even lightly I'd be seeing stars.

Unexpectedly, he dropped his hands to his sides, clutching just as desperately at the sheets as he had at my hair, closing his eyes tightly, and I wasn't entirely certain but I thought he might be mumbling vocal exercises to himself. All of this gave him a chance to recover some composure, and he reached down after a moment to grip my shoulders and pull me up in a single rough motion. Our lips met, and it was like the night before all over again, kisses so deep and intense they were almost painful.

I straddled him without lifting my mouth from his, and he grabbed my waist hard enough to bruise, steadying me as I positioned myself until finally I could sink down onto him, my entire body crying out in gratitude as he filled me, opening me in a way I was rapidly becoming addicted to. The angle gave me the control, and I moved frantically above him. He slipped his hands under his shirt, running them down my back and up my chest, cupping my breasts and pinching my nipples hard. It should have been painful but wasn't because at this point pain didn't exist, everything was pleasure.

He kissed a trail from my lips to my throat, running his tongue along the barely healed marks he'd made the night before, teasing my ear, biting my earlobe gently before tugging hard on my hair, pulling my head back. His eyes locked with mine, and they were dark and intense and burning.

"Say my name," he commanded urgently, and as he moved one hand between my legs to tease my clit I gladly complied.

It was a relief to say his name, a relief just to know it, and I murmured it over and over again in a litany interspersed with "oh" "god" "yes" and "please" as he stroked my clit rhythmically, jolts of pleasure forming rungs on an endless ladder that lead somewhere I _really_ wanted to go. Finally he adjusted his hand so that my clit received constant stimulation, pleasure without pause, which I suppose would be the equivalent of a people mover or elevator or something, which I wasn't thinking about at all because I was so close.

"Will, please god please don't leave me like this _please_!" I moaned. And yes I was begging and yes I was frantic and no I didn't care. I just needed him.

When he kissed me, he tasted just as desperate as I was. "I won't."

And then he moved just right, just the way I'd wanted him to, and I sobbed in relief as my entire world dissolved in the best possible way. Nothing existed except me, except him, except the pleasure radiating throughout my body and his, because I was coming and he was coming inside me and he was moaning _my_ name, which I'd always thought would sound weird but never had the chance to find out because I was already Norah Castle the first time I had sex. And the way he said my name, caressing the syllables with his harsh, beautiful voice, I decided it didn't sound weird at all.

**TBC**


	7. Sunny Side

_For _traceit_, _someWhereinRoma_, _christyZ_ and _Valentinas_. Thank you so much for your feedback and support!_

**7**

We lay together in the aftermath of our passion, bodies slick with sweat and sliding against one another's, and I know we had a conversation but I've never been able to remember what it was about. I was too busy wondering what the hell had just happened to me. Hearing him call out my given name in the throes of ecstasy reminded me of hearing about my mother's death; I had expected to feel nothing at all, and instead found myself flooded with emotions so unfamiliar to me that I couldn't even name them. In this case, of course, the emotions were rather different, but overall I just felt… Vulnerable. Not at all like myself. Norah Castle was never, ever vulnerable. Honor, on the other hand, clearly was, and of course I know they're not really two different people, they're both me, and regardless of what I'm called it shouldn't make a difference but it did. It was as though by burying his face in the crook of my neck and sighing that one little word gently into my ear as he came he had stripped me completely bare, learned a secret I didn't know I had, and so I lay with my head on his chest listening to his heartbeat slow and just feeling so confused. None of it made sense, what was happening to me, if anything was happening to me. It just… Nothing made sense.

I suppose this is why I didn't protest when he again suggested breakfast, and why I let him dress me as carefully as he had undressed me the night before. Last night it had seemed like a harmless little thing, perhaps a mild kink, but in the light of day there was a sweetness to the gesture that made me ache somehow. And as he tucked his collared shirt, which I'd never fully removed, into my jeans, his fingers brushing against the bare skin of my hips and making me shiver, I knew, absolutely knew that I should just dress my damn self, send him on his way and shower once more. I ought to remove his scent from my body again, scrub until I could no longer feel his touch on my skin, until I no longer felt indelibly marked, and I'd had one night stands before but they'd never made me think anything like this, or really anything at all. Somewhere deep inside it terrified me, and actually _that_ is the reason I walked two blocks down the street with him to a quaint neighborhood diner. Norah Castle wasn't afraid of anything, and she was certainly never terrified; I felt that if I didn't confront this fear it would be a tacit admission that deep inside, I wasn't Norah Castle at all, and I couldn't let that be true because if I wasn't her I wasn't anyone.

I don't know if I'm explaining this right, but it didn't make sense at the time either so... Anyway. We ended up at the Sunny Side diner, whose main attraction seemed to be a huge clock in the image of a fried egg, and which Will kindly explained was the only restaurant in town open at 7 a.m. He guided me to a small table in the back, and we sat across from one another, our legs fitted together like the teeth of a zipper, and neither of us tried to pull away because why? Considering that it was a diner I'm sure they had food on the menu, but I never managed to read a single item because he kept smiling at me over the top of his, and making little comments about the neighborhood, and shifting his legs slightly so that I couldn't help but shift with him. God, I hated it, this feeling that suddenly I wasn't myself anymore, this feeling of being compelled by some unknown force to answer each of his smiles with one of my own. And he was so painfully attractive with his messy hair and shadow beard and bleary hazel eyes that I wished I could look away, and have I mentioned already how none of this made any sense?

After a few minutes Will made his choice and set his menu aside; I followed suit because my menu might as well have been written in Cyrillic for all the good it had done me. He smiled again, and god how I wished he would stop that, reached out and took my hand. It still felt good every time he touched me.

"I really want to thank you, Honor," he began, toying with my fingers and looking straight into my eyes. "Last night, just talking to you, that really helped me, and I want you to know I appreciate it."

"And the rest of it?" I asked, trying to lighten the mood, uncertain of how to respond to his gratitude because while the effects of what I'd done might have been beneficial to him, I had really only had that conversation for selfish reasons.

His soft smile widened into a wicked grin. "I should probably thank you for that, too. It was… I've never… I mean…" and he was blushing again.

"I know," I replied, putting him out of his misery. "Me either."

The waitress came to take our orders (oatmeal and fruit, which apparently _was_ on the menu, for me, an astonishing variety of pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns and assorted animal products for him [_Where on earth does he put it?_]) and disappeared again with quiet efficiency.

Will gave me a considering look, though what he was considering I'm not sure. It was almost as though he was trying to see me better or see through me altogether, and I was nervous for reasons that had nothing to do with my disguise, though that should have been my first concern.

"Last night… What made you decide to take me home? I've been wondering and wondering and I really can't figure it out."

"You don't spend a lot of time staring at yourself in the mirror, do you?" I asked, nudging my knee against his and laughing.

"I'm not saying I'm not pretty," he answered in kind before sobering slightly. "I'm just saying that can't have been the only thing. You chose to speak to me. I didn't have the nerve to speak to you."

I closed my eyes, conjured up an image of him as I'd first seen him, fairly radiating pain on that ridiculous excuse for a stage, drawing me inevitably closer the way planets do with stars. And I wanted to tell him the truth, wanted to be as genuine with him as he had been with me, because I felt he deserved it. And anyway, again, withholding information isn't the same thing as lying.

"When you were singing, you were so…" I searched for a word big enough to encompass all the emotions I'd seen in him; there wasn't one. I settled for understatement. "You were so sad. That song, it sounds…"

I paused, struggling for words. It was deeply frustrating, trying to explain this without exposing myself. "On its surface, it doesn't seem so depressing, you know? The music is kind of upbeat, the lyrics are ambiguous. But I've always found it heartbreaking, and you were singing it like you knew that. Does that make sense?"

He nodded, staring at me intently. "Yes. It's funny though… Until this week, I never found the song sad myself. But I tend to sing to myself when I'm upset, and for some reason that song came to me as the one that described what I was feeling."

"I understand," I whispered, because it reminded me of how I'd written it in the first place, just rhyming the directions to my apartment for no apparent reason and then realizing who I wished they would bring to me. I felt a tightness in my chest, felt all the strangeness of him saying these things to my face, unaware. No one else had ever understood the song that way, and I almost wanted to thank him for it.

Instead I squeezed his hand gently. "I'm really sorry. About what you're going through. I can't imagine what it's like."

"I don't know," he said, "I almost think it might be for the best… Maybe the baby was the only thing keeping us together, and how long would that have lasted? It's better to end it now instead of bringing a child into that mess."

I nodded, agreeing with him, but it seemed too… Glib. "That doesn't mean it doesn't suck though."

He laughed at my language. "Yeah. It does suck. I really wanted it so much…"

His face was sad again, and I could have kicked myself for my insensitivity. Some distraction I was, reminding him of everything he wanted to forget.

"Alright, you asked me a question," I said, interrupting what ever depressing thoughts he was experiencing, making it sound like a game. "A rather personal question, in fact. So it's my turn."

Expression lightening, he nodded in agreement, though it seemed to me as though he understood my motivations but was willing to go along with it. "What kind of personal question will you ask? Boxers or briefs?"

I shot him what I hoped was an exaggeratedly sultry look. "Oh, I know the answer to that one. No. What I want to know why you're here in Lima teaching when you're able to sing the way you did last night. Your voice is…" Understatement again: "Good. Really good."

He smiled, pleased by my compliment though he shouldn't have been at all surprised; surely I was not the first person to tell him this. "Thanks. I love to sing, love to perform, but teaching is… It's my passion."

There was a fervent light in his eyes as he said this, one typically reserved for lovers and messiahs and true callings, and like so many things about him it made me feel confused. He had passion that matched, and talent that far outstripped, mine, and with that combination he could have achieved at least as much as I ever had, maybe more. How could he possess all of that and make a choice so different from mine? I didn't understand him, was beginning to think I _couldn't_ understand him, and I didn't understand why I wanted to.

"Honor?" Will's voice interrupted my thoughts, and it occurred to me that issues of an existential nature are time consuming things and better to deal with alone, like cloistered in an abbey or something, otherwise they make conversation awkward.

I shook my head and smiled, resolving as usual to think about all of this later (where "later" is greater than or equal to "never") and the tilt of my lips didn't feel like a lie exactly. "Sorry, I just… Checked out." Which was a serious understatement, but he nodded in understanding, and I continued "I've never met anyone who felt so strongly about teaching. What's your subject?"

And yes I only asked because I wanted to keep him distracted, and thereby distract myself, but I was curious too.

"Spanish," he responded, which was unexpected. I would have guessed… Anything other than.

"Impressive," I said, and meant it. "I barely speak American."

He laughed, a warm deep sound that did something strange to my insides, and shrugged. "I'll tell you a secret: my Spanish is not great. I, uh, majored in econ in college. But I kind of speak it and I do enjoy teaching it. And I also run the glee club at school, so I'm still involved with music. I still get to perform occasionally, even if it's just for the kids."

Our food arrived, and I peppered him with more distracting questions until he was goaded into telling me about the soap-operatic drama surrounding his glee club and Sectionals, which they'd just won. He introduced the various students, called them "my kids" and spoke of them with such deep, genuine affection that I began to feel as if I knew and loved them too. From his descriptions I could discern a little of myself in each of them, which was either a good thing or a bad thing for them, depending on your perspective.

"I wish I could see you guys perform," I murmured unthinkingly, and his face began to glow with excitement.

"You should! Come to our meeting Wednesday, we'll put together a performance for you. I think you'll be really impressed with them, they're so talented and they just work so hard. " His enthusiasm was unfeigned, and I wanted to say yes. But the situation was so…

"I don't know, Will, wouldn't that be weird?" It would be _very_ weird for me. The whole disguise issue aside, teenagers are far savvier than people give them credit for. I knew they could easily add two and two and arrive at four if I showed up to their meeting for no apparent reason.

"Look," he said, serious again. "I've never done this kind of thing before so I don't really know how it works. Is it against the rules for us to be friends? Because I'd like us to be."

I looked at him and wanted to laugh at his naïveté. Didn't he realize that after last night we could never be friends? Didn't he understand the basic theory behind one-night stands? _We shouldn't have exchanged names,_ I thought. _We shouldn't be having breakfast together._ The terror he'd instilled in me earlier came back, intensified by the knowledge that even this brief conversation together had made me want to know so much more about him, and it occurred to me that maybe Norah Castle could be terrified of something after all. And did _I_ even understand the basic theory behind one-night stands? This was just silly. This was the moment for me to let him down gently, explain that we shouldn't see each other again, because that's just not how it worked.

"I'd like that too," I answered instead, because I am an idiot.

**TBC**

_Normally I try not to beg for reviews, but I would _really really really_ appreciate feedback on this chapter, especially anything you specifically liked or disliked. An earlier draft of the chapter just didn't seem right, so I went through and rewrote it and I'd like to know if that was a good idea or not... Thank you in advance!_


	8. Overachievement

_For _Valentinas_, _traceit_, _someWhereinRoma_ and especially _Greys has become my life_, who really went above and beyond the call of duty with the detailed review (and yes, I loved every second of it). Thank you so much for your continued support, it really means a lot to me that anyone cares about this at all._

**8**

There had never been anything to do in Lima, of course, but there were even fewer options for me now, as I hadn't kept in touch with anyone I'd known before- I suspect most of them believed I was dead, considering the fact that I'd run away from home and simply never returned- and anyway I couldn't risk being recognized. At first I thought this would be a good thing. I could take some time to write some music, catch up on the new season of _Dexter_, and just relax, which is something I never got to do in Los Angeles. And the strange thing is, I knew I should have enjoyed it, would have enjoyed it just a few days ago, but now… The house was so big, and empty, and my footsteps literally echoed, and echoed, and echoed, with no response from feet other than my own.

There were ghosts and memories lurking everywhere, in the kitchen and living room and even the mailbox somehow, and it took so much effort to push them away, and I just felt so lonely. Which was abnormal for me; I'd been a quiet child, a quiet teen, and had been completely on my own since the age of 16. Being alone did not usually equate to being lonely, not for me anyway, and anytime it did I'd just write about it and maybe end up with a new single or, if I was feeling especially motivated, pick up a guy in a bar.

But I couldn't do that here (again). It was too risky and anyway I… I didn't really want to. My mind kept returning to thoughts of Will, and as much as this continued to perplex and terrify me, the terror would sometimes recede and I would smile, and genuinely look forward to Wednesday when I could see him again. And then I would catch myself, and reprimand myself, and I'd vow not to go, because I neither needed nor wanted friends and certainly not friends like him, so earnest and endearing and enthralling. Nor did I need or want anything else. At all.

The worst part was the fact that even though I went through this cycle, apprehension rising and falling like the tide inside me, I wore his shirt constantly. At this point it smelled more like me than like him, but… I wore it nonetheless. And I told myself it was because it was comfortable, and I never believe myself when I lie like that but I do it all the time anyway.

I don't want to sound delusional here, or at least not entirely delusional. After getting my GED I also took some college courses, including an intro to psychology, and that was more than enough for me to know that I was attempting to cope with whatever it was I couldn't handle by focusing my attention elsewhere, or something. The problem being that I'd chosen the worst possible elsewhere. It was a case of the cure being worse than the disease, and actually I'm not sure what I'm talking about. All I knew was that I'd broken the rules. I'd started to get to know him, and the little bit that I _did_ know made me see the life I might have lived if I had stayed in Lima, the kind of man I might have married, the kind of family I might have had. And for literally the only time in the past ten years, I began to see that life I had forsaken as having more value than I'd originally believed.

It was something I'd never considered before, because when I'd left I'd felt like I hadn't had a choice, and really I hadn't. Between my mother constantly pushing me away and the voice inside my head screaming at me to run, there had been no other option for me, and my entire life as Honor felt like a boring, hazy daydream compared to the life I'd built for myself as Norah. Nothing had ever felt as real to me as the concrete floors of the Los Angeles central Greyhound station the day I climbed out of the bus that had delivered me from Ohio; secretly, inside, I saw that day as the day I was born.

But every hour back I was slipping, and California was so far away. The longer I inhabited the unfamiliar persona of my former self, the more real she became, the more the lines blurred. Suddenly the hardwood floors of my mother's house, cold and smooth under my bare feet, felt solid and true, and in all my memories of Los Angeles I was floating, un-tethered, my soles never touching the ground.

Yeah, so these were the thoughts that were running me ragged day and night, though occasionally I would sit and force myself to _not_ think of my mother, just to keep it interesting, and is it any wonder I was sick of it, sick of myself? I wanted to be alone but couldn't stand the silence of my own company, wanted to be touched but couldn't stand the thought of anyone touching me, or almost anyone, and I ignored the exception because he just proved the rule that one-night stands should only and always be one night. And now looking back I wonder if maybe I wasn't having a nervous breakdown of some kind and simply didn't realize it.

This nonsense went on for two days, Saturday and Sunday wasted so pointlessly, no songs written, no _Dexter _watched, and definitely no relaxation accomplished. I was a wreck. Then, Monday, a visitor came and saved me from myself, and thank god, because really I was driving myself crazier than a musician is required to be by law, and nobody likes an overachiever.

**TBC**


	9. The Weather

_For _christyZ _and_ someWhereinRoma. _I know the last chapter was just a bit of lead-up, but I appreciate the fact that you reviewed it anyway. Hopefully this chapter will better meet with everyone's approval..._

**9**

I was playing my guitar when the doorbell rang, or theoretically anyway; I was playing _with_ it, at least, attempting to force all the familiar chords into something, anything new, something that might absorb me and take me the hell out of myself because really I couldn't stand to be inside my head anymore (and forgive me, I'm sure it's not easy for you either). I set it aside gratefully, because I had a headache and also because I panic whenever I get writer's block and worry I'll never write another song again. My mind quickly turned to the mystery of who might be visiting, and naturally I could only imagine one candidate. Part of me was pleased, part of me was terrified, but the most practical part of me was recognizing a major problem: I was still wearing his shirt and he would obviously recognize it and then I would look crazy, crazier than I was (or just as crazy as I was which was quite enough).

I stripped it off quickly, looked around for a place to stash it, and settled for stuffing it in the refrigerator (this is a great hiding spot; no one ever checks the fridge for incriminating evidence). Wearing only a camisole and jeans, I went to answer the door, forgetting all the rules learned in 10 years of living in Los Angeles to the extent that I didn't even bother looking through the peephole before opening it.

Disappointingly, the person standing there was not at all who I'd expected, and for a moment I couldn't imagine who she was. She was tall and slim with shoulder-length red hair, wide doe eyes and a sweet, eager smile, and she was holding a covered baking dish in front of her. My immediate reflexive thought was _Stalker!_ (what? Sometimes my stalkers bake me cupcakes) but then I looked a little closer. I imagined her with an unflattering bowl cut, braces and acne, and that image plugged itself into one of my high school memories of watching a friend carefully sterilize the door handle of our 3rd period English class.

"Emma?" I exclaimed, shocked, and my smile returned full force. "What are you doing here?"

"May I come in?" she asked. Her voice was just as childish as I remembered, which had seemed far too childish when we were young but now somehow complimented her appearance and graceful carriage, and I stepped back to allow her to enter.

"Of course, of course… What are you doing here, how did you know…?" I lead her to the kitchen, gesturing to the counter. "You can set that there if you like. What is it by the way? It's so-" I stopped suddenly, surprised by the catch in my voice, surprised by what I was about to say. "-_good_ to see you."

And it really was. I had been a loner in high school, hadn't been genuinely close to anyone, but Emma had been the nearest thing I'd had to a best friend. Her OCD, which she'd always simply referred to as "slightly unusual habits", set her apart from the rest of our peers as much as I set myself apart by choice. When I'd left, she'd been the only one I ever imagined I might miss, the only one I ever imagined might miss me, and the only one I ever sent word to after I was gone: one postcard, three months later, with a picture of the Santa Monica pier and the message _The weather is here… Wish you were beautiful._ Which seems like an insult, now that I think about it, but actually it was a line from a song I'd once played her that had made her laugh.

She set down her dish and turned to me with another soft smile, this one sympathetic. "I read about your mom, and I thought you might come back, thought you might need someone to talk to."

I felt a sudden strange stinging in my eyes, one which I vaguely recognized as heralding tears, but I blinked quickly and the sensation faded. It was just so like her to notice something like that, to be worried about me even though I'd spent the last ten years not thinking about her at all. And it had been so long since someone had worried about me.

"That's really… Really nice," I answered after a moment, when I was sure my voice wouldn't waver.

"Well, that and I was really curious," she admitted, laughing. "I mean, look at you! I always knew you'd make it, Honor. Norah? I'm not sure what I'm supposed to call you now."

Neither was I, really. Somehow both names felt like a lie, or like only part of the truth. "Honor is fine. And how did you know? Does everyone know? I kind of always thought…"

"What? That you'd disappear off the face of the earth and no one would notice?" she asked, eyebrows raised.

Yes, actually. I shrugged, and the look on my face said it all.

"Oh, Honor," she sighed, shaking her head. "You know that's not true."

"If you say so," I murmured. "But what is this you brought? Would you like to sit down? I'm sorry, I'm being a terrible hostess."

Emma smiled and began to sit, then stopped herself, shooting me an awkward look. "Do you mind if I…?" She made a vague gesture to the tote bag she carried.

It made me sad to realize that the obsessions that had governed her life ten years ago were still a part of it. "Of course not. I can't vouch for the cleanliness of anything in this house, though I did have it cleaned professionally before I came."

She withdrew a paper packet and opened it carefully, removing some kind of wet nap that smelled strongly of lemon and bleach and rubbing it over the seat of the chair and the headrest, and I almost smiled because I hadn't thought about it in forever but now I remembered that single-minded intensity with which she used to disinfect her chair and desk before each class. Back then she used a mixture of bleach and alcohol in a spray bottle; she'd apparently updated her tactics for the 21st century.

"Even professionals miss certain areas," she said, clearly somewhat embarrassed, as she sterilized and wiped down the kitchen table as well.

"I'm sure that's true," I replied, but what I really meant was _Don't worry about it, no judgment._

"There!" Satisfied with her work, she returned her supplies to her bag and sat gracefully. "And I just brought some paprikash casserole, because… Well, because that's what you do" _in Ohio when visiting someone recently bereaved._

This time I did smile, a little nostalgically, because it really was _so_ Midwestern, and while I wasn't entirely certain I fit the definition of "bereaved", I also hadn't had paprikash in any form since I'd been in LA. The heavy dish of chicken, sour cream, paprika and, when baked in a casserole, egg noodles or tater tots, was probably illegal there. And also probably should be, considering the calorie count, but as I'd been on a diet for ten years…

"It smells delicious," I said sincerely. "Will you stay for dinner? You can clean anything you want, however you want to, before you have to eat off of it," I added.

"In that case, yes." She grinned, and I grinned back, and really it felt good.

**TBC**


	10. Sour Cream

_For someWhereinRoma and Dementedx. Your continuous support continues to inspire, and I shall continue to endeavor to be worthy of it._

**10**

We chatted while she cleaned my kitchen (I'd tried to help, but Emma had her own way of doing things and finally she told me that if I was going to insist on not scrubbing the countertop properly she'd prefer I just watch and learn), and she gave me the _Cliff's Notes_ version of the last ten years of her life. She was now a high school guidance counselor, which was the absolute perfect job for her of course. Who could possibly be more understanding about all the strangeness growing up inevitably entails? Even as a young girl, she'd understood me better than I'd understood myself, and it was strange how we'd slipped back into our previous friendship as though no time had passed at all, as though I hadn't been absent for all the biggest events in her life and she hadn't learned about mine via _Entertainment Tonight_. She explained to me that until recently she'd been engaged to a colleague at work, a Phys. Ed teacher, but apparently that whole relationship had ended unhappily.

"It wasn't his fault, you know," she confided sadly. I nodded as though I knew what she was talking about, expecting her to continue, but instead she paused. "Um, Honor, why is there a shirt in the refrigerator?"

I froze and turned to her, frantically searching my mind for any possible excuse. In the end all I could do was shrug. "Em, you're scrubbing the produce drawer with a toothbrush, you have no room to talk."

"True," she agreed, but still looked confused. "It's just… Very unhygienic." She shuddered theatrically, except I don't think she was being theatrical; I took the shirt from her and tossed it over the back of one of the chairs.

"You were saying? About how it wasn't his fault…" I prompted, hoping to distract her.

She nodded, and her eyes were sad again. "I was in love with someone else, it wasn't fair of me."

Somehow I wasn't entirely surprised that she'd ended up in that kind of situation; she was too sweet, too kind for her own good, and counter-intuitive as it may be, that kind of unwillingness to hurt someone even when it would be for the best can often translate into bad situations being drawn out far longer than necessary (though obviously I'm speaking from observation and not experience).

"And now that you're free?" I asked.

Her sad expression transformed into a shy smile. "Well, I don't know, it's all very, very recent… This just happened practically last week. But this guy, I think maybe… I mean, things are complicated for him right now. And me, with Ken and everything, but… He kissed me, and I think maybe we might… Have a chance, you know?"

It wasn't just the tilt of her lips that made her look happy, her entire face glowed, her eyes shining as though lit from within, and I tried to remember if I'd ever worn an expression like that in my entire life. Somehow I didn't think so.

"That's great, Emma." I meant it, really meant it, because as much as I hadn't thought of her in so long, now that she was here in front of me I realized how very much I wanted her to be happy.

"What about you? Your life is probably more exciting than mine." She began to set the table with the plates and silverware she'd just finished disinfecting, looking at me inquisitively.

"I don't know, that tale of secret love and heartache and a broken engagement could have come from the tabloids really," I pointed out, "but things are… Well, I mean…" _What are they?_ "They're good, I think. My last album did really well, the tour was a success, and I'm" _not unhappy I guess?_ "really happy. Ecstatic. I never imagined any of this would happen for me." That last bit was completely true at least, but I was surprised by how much of what I'd said had felt like a lie. My life was perfect, I knew it was perfect. Or would be, once I returned home.

"I always knew it would," she assured me quietly as she dished out portions of the casserole. "I wasn't surprised when you left, and I've kept track of your career. Oh, and I own all your albums. But what about, you know, love and a family and everything?"

I hesitated, my years in the spotlight and deep abiding fear of having my private business end up in the papers having made me paranoid, but I knew Emma would never repeat anything told in confidence. "I don't know if I'm cut out for all of that, Em. I'm not… I don't _connect_, you know? And the way my life is makes it harder. I can't think of a single person in LA who wouldn't toss me under a bus, literally, if the incentive was great enough."

"But you have friends, right?" Her voice was so sad and concerned.

I shrugged, taking a bite of the paprikash and sighing happily. "I haven't had sour cream in approximately ten years."

She smiled. "Sad as that is, you're not going to distract me. You have friends, right?"

Really she was too tenacious for her own good. "Yes, of course. Fellow musicians and producers and everything… But… You won't understand this, Em, you're too _good_, but I can think of very few of them who _I_ wouldn't toss under a bus if the incentive was great enough."

"I don't believe that," she said, "and I don't think you do either."

She was completely wrong about this; honestly, I could think of some people I'd be downright overjoyed to toss under a bus regardless of incentive, but I didn't tell her that.

"Do you want to know what I think?"

I nodded. "Of course. Guide me, counsel me," I teased, desperately trying to lighten the mood. Emma wasn't going for it.

"I think you need to realize that just because your mother didn't love you the way you wanted her to, that doesn't mean no one ever will," she told me, voice soft. "When you left, you left behind people who cared about you, you just didn't know it."

I looked away guiltily. "Maybe. But it doesn't matter. I don't regret it." _I don't._

"How did you feel when you found out she was gone?" Emma pressed in her careful, delicate way.

"Irritated, mostly," I lied. Part of me wanted to try to explain what I'd felt, how much the emotions had surprised me, but I couldn't even put them into words so I didn't try. "I'm in the middle of a lot of important things right now, and I knew leaving for a week would be really inconvenient."

Emma's wide warm eyes looked into mine with gentle understanding. "We don't have to talk about your mother," she murmured. "But do you have anyone special in your life?"

"No," I answered immediately, but even as I said it my mind turned to Will. Which was… Nonsensical. He was neither special nor actually in my life. But he was… Something, and if anyone could understand it would be Emma, at least if I could explain it in some half-intelligible way. I'd have to keep it general, of course; Lima was a small town and it was entirely possible she'd know who I was talking about. It wasn't my place to tell others that his marriage was over, but surely I could give a basic overview.

"I met someone recently… VERY recently… But it's like you said, it's a complicated situation… And I don't know him very well, I just know that if I could I would like to. Maybe. Does that make sense?" I rather suspected it didn't.

"It does," she said, as if to specifically contradict my thoughts, and I smiled a little. "I think that no matter how complicated things are, you shouldn't give up if you have a chance at happiness. I mean, look at me… I thought nothing would ever happen with this guy, and then suddenly everything changed and now it's a real possibility. So you can't give up." And her face was glowing again.

"Yes, but that's _you_, Em," I pointed out. "And you deserve it, which I don't. Also, when I say complicated, I mean… Soap-opera complicated, you know?" (_A secret identity, a celebrity with a painful past, a fake baby, a one-night stand… Jesus, my life _is_ a soap opera.)_

"Can I say one more thing?" Emma asked, watching me carefully.

"Of course," I told her, wanting to reassure her. "I am listening, Em, honestly, and I appreciate your perspective. I don't have anyone to talk to" _at all_ "about things like this."

"I think you're lonely, and hurt, and you've felt that way for so long that you've turned it into a character trait. You think you're the go it alone type, Honor, but I know you. You were only ever that way because you had to be, and you don't have to be anymore. You need to give yourself permission to really be happy."

There was no condemnation in her voice as she said this, only acceptance and absolution, and I remembered that the most annoying thing about Emma was the fact that she was always, always right.

"God, I miss sour cream," I muttered, consuming my last bite of casserole, and just like that we changed the subject.

**TBC**

_I understand that this chapter may cause a feeling of conflicting loyalties, but please stay with me. You've trusted me for 15k words so far, trust me for that many more and I promise you everything will be right in the end._

_Reviews are the only things that get me through the day... I'm just sayin'._


	11. Paper Bag

_For _traceit_, _christierrr_ and _Greys has become my life_. I'm so grateful that you take the time to let me know your thoughts._

**1****1**

You might think I'd spend the next two days mulling over Emma's words, considering her advice, deciding she was right or wrong or both or _something_, but you'd be incorrect. Instead I did what I always do with things I don't want to think about and just ignored everything she'd said completely. It was easy enough, considering how much practice I'd had, and so I made up my mind about Wednesday based not on her advice but on my own feelings. I decided to go because I had nothing to do and anyway there was nothing to be afraid of (liar), bid Will a polite farewell in his choir room and return home two days later as planned. There was no reason to deviate from any of this. Perhaps I'd have to return to Lima at some point in the future to make sure the sale of the house was going forward smoothly, but if that happened and I found myself lonely I would certainly not try to get in touch with Will. I'd go to a different bar and pick up someone else, one man being pretty much the same as another in the dark.

I felt very smug about these decisions, the same kind of smugness I feel when I really want to eat an entire batch of brownies but have some plain yogurt and fruit instead. And because I'm a masochist I usually eat it while staring at the brownies, inhaling their warm aroma and thinking _This is the definition of self-control._ The satisfaction I derive from that little bit of disordered eating is very similar to the satisfaction that filled me when I thought of how I was going to see Will and then walk nonchalantly away. It should have worried me that I was equating that choice with something that required self-control, but it didn't because I'm not nearly as smart as I like to think I am.

Anyway, time stood still as it is wont to do whenever I'm looking forward to anything, and I was looking forward to Wednesday the way I used to look forward to sold-out stadium shows. Not because of Will, of course (liar), but because I was so bored. Emma had a job and a life and therefore was not available to entertain me constantly (though she did call twice just to chat, which I secretly loved, even though she spent most of the time gushing about the man she was interested in who, well, he'd been slightly distant lately but things were complicated for him and…), and so I was back to going crazy, dodging the ghosts in the hallway and watching the same episode of _Dexter_ over and over again because I just couldn't concentrate. About the only thing I accomplished between Monday and Wednesday afternoon was writing a decent little piece of music, something that might possibly become a decent song when I had the ability to really focus on it. So that was something at least.

Wednesday found me at William McKinley High School, slightly early at 3:15. Classes had just ended for the day, and there were still kids streaming out the doors and into their parents' waiting cars and arms. I tried to stay out of their way and keep my head down, though I wasn't too worried about being recognized. Sadly, I'd accepted the necessity of putting aside my vanity for the sake of my disguise, and I was in full Honor Castlereagh regalia. I'd donned a soft grass green off-the-shoulder sweater and a knee-length dark denim skirt, pulling it all together with some low-heeled gray boots. I'd even donned a new cabbie hat (gray with a bow) for the occasion, and tucked my hair underneath just to be safe, which made me look like a lovable urchin of some kind. When I caught my reflection in one of the classroom windows as I wandered by, searching for the choir room, for a moment I thought I was an extra in _Newsies_. So… Perfect, I guess.

What was not perfect was the fact that I had no idea where I was going. The hallways of the school were abnormally labyrinthine, twisting and turning and doubling back on themselves, I swear, and after a few minutes I was completely lost and unfortunately late and why on earth was it so difficult to find the damn choir room? I spotted a rectangle of light on the tile, signaling an open door halfway down the hall, and I poked my head in, pleased to see there was someone inside, an older woman sitting at a desk.

"Excuse me," I began, and the woman looked up from the journal in which she was writing. Her face was strong and handsome, nicely framed by short blonde hair, yet she had a hardness about her that was extremely off-putting. Also, she was wearing a red tracksuit for some reason.

"Can I help you?" The exasperated tone in her voice perfectly matched her hard appearance.

"Maybe?" I answered, though it came out as a question rather than the statement I intended it to be, and that was odd because obviously I'm the confident type. "I'm looking for the choir room, I'm here for glee rehearsal."

She gave me an appraising glance, piercing eyes lingering on my face in an unsettling way, before raising her eyes skeptically. "Aren't you a bit old for it?"

I was kind of getting the impression that this woman was a bitch. "I'm not actually here to rehearse," I informed her, drawing myself up to my full height, which I saw when she rose in no way matched hers. "I'm a friend of the director's, he invited me to see his kids perform."

The woman's unpleasant expression immediately disappeared, replaced by a sweet smile I definitely didn't trust. "Oh, you're a friend of William's? Well I can take you to him, just come right this way." She made a hokey _come along_ kind of gesture, and I got the feeling she was mocking me with it somehow.

"Thanks," I said, trying to figure out her angle. My years in LA had given me a very good radar for insincerity (though it was somewhat useless as pretty much everyone in the city set it off), and this woman was registering quite high on the "ulterior motives" scale. Also, I didn't like the way she'd said Will's name, almost condescending and… I don't know. I just didn't like her. But I did follow her, because she knew where I was meant to be going and I did not.

"I'm Sue Sylvester," she told me with another of those poisonous sweet smiles. "I coach the Cheerios, our competitive cheerleading squad. You've probably seen us on ESPN."

"The name doesn't ring a bell," I answered, wondering why on earth ESPN would show competitive cheerleading- like, is it a sport?- "but it is possible. I'm Honor Castlereagh."

"What a unique name. Honor. Castlereagh." She repeated my name, drawing out the syllables as though testing them.

I decided I didn't appreciate the way she said my name any more than I did the way she said Will's. "Yeah, it's a family thing."

There was a long, awkward pause, with only the sound of her sneakers squeaking on the tile floor punctuated with the tapping of my boot-heels to break it until she spoke again. "How long have you known William? Where did you meet?"

She was fishing, using a tone of false companionship as her bait (just two girls, gossiping together!) and it made me nervous because I couldn't help but wonder what she was fishing for. She seemed quick, and god knew there was plenty to catch. "Oh, awhile." I made my answer as vague as possible. "We're both interested in music, so that's how we met."

"Oh, are you a musician?"

The question was asked so casually that I knew she was at least a little suspicious. I shrugged, as a too-vehement denial would likely be a dead giveaway. "Not really," I said indifferently. "I can play the piano a little, but really I just like watching others perform. Will is a very talented performer," I added, voice sincere because of all the assertions I'd made so far, that was the only one that was true.

"That's interesting," she murmured. "You just really remind me of someone. Who am I thinking of? The woman with the grating voice and the sappy lyrics and the Grammys?"

Only one of those accusations is true. To my shame, I do have a few Grammys, but the voting for them has been much less rigged in recent years so they're perfectly respectable. And also this woman was far too sharp, saw far too much, for my comfort. Again, I shrugged, hoping my casual attitude was believable. "You're probably thinking of Norah Castle. I get that a lot. It's kind of flattering, really; she can't sing her way out of a paper bag, but she's got a great ass." Hey, I believe in telling the truth whenever possible.

Sue snapped her finger and pointed at me. "Yes! That's the one! Norah. Castle." She gave no indication as to whether or not I had assuaged her suspicions, and that fact only increased my nervousness.

Coming to a halt in front of a set of double doors, she turned to me. "Well, here we are. Soon you'll be listening to the dulcet tones of our very own glee club. I really wish I could stay, but I have to go mix up a protein shake, and then I'm doing an interview with _SI_." She gave me an indulgent look upon seeing my blank expression. "That's _Sports Illustrated_. Tell William I said hello. It was nice to meet you. Honor. Castlereagh."

There was a sense of foreboding deep in the pit of my stomach. I wasn't sure whether I had fooled her or not, and it wasn't the kind of thing I could afford to be uncertain about.

**TBC**


	12. Down

_For Valentinas, because I think she's the only one who read the last chapter._

**12**

The smart thing to do at this point would probably have been to leave. That Sue woman was undeniably suspicious, and if I was serious about maintaining my low profile it was better not to take chances. But I had deeply disliked her, and I deeply disliked the idea that she could scare me away from somewhere I wanted to be, so I decided not to let her. Instead of turning around and marching straight back to my mother's house, I approached the choir room. There was a small window in the door, and the door itself was cracked open slightly, so that I could see into the room and hear what the people inside were discussing without them being aware anyone was listening. I took advantage of this in a way that did not resemble creepy stalking at all as I considered my options.

Will was sitting at the piano (looking absurdly handsome, and very scholastic, in his collared shirt, tie and cardigan sweater), shuffling through some sheet music, and a small group of approximately ten kids was watching him kind of… Skeptically? That's the only word I can think of for it, as if they weren't entirely certain the man they were looking at was their teacher and not some kind of alien clone or something. A girl in the front row with long dark hair, dark eyes and a strangely childish wardrobe (animal sweatshirt, schoolgirl skirt) raised her hand, holding it high for several moments even though Will's attention was still focused on his sheet music. The kids around her rolled their eyes.

Finally, she lowered her hand and spoke, her voice brisk and commanding. "Mr. Schuester, I understand you'd like us to wait for your friend to arrive, but really we don't have the time to be sitting around doing nothing. I have a long list of songs we should consider for regionals, chosen to showcase our strongest singers-"

"Oh, so just you then?" a black girl towards the back asked, voice sarcastic.

The first girl looked offended. "I think it's only natural that in an important competition we'd want to focus on the one of us with the most training and experience, but of course there are parts for everyone."

"Small, small parts," a pretty (no other word for it) boy sitting next to the black girl interjected, tone venomous.

"Whether my fellow glee clubbers agree with my list or not," the first girl said, pointedly ignoring the black girl and her friend, addressing only Will, "the point is that it makes no sense to waste this rehearsal waiting for someone who might not show up."

Will looked up, an exasperated look on his face. "Rachel, I understand your concern, but my friend will be here any minute and I think it's only polite that we wait for her. She's really looking forward to seeing you perform and I want her to get the whole effect, not walk in while we're all rehearsing different songs."

A boy in the back with a mohawk raised his hand, speaking before Will even called on him. "I'm not usually into agreeing with Rachel, but she might actually be right about this, Mr. Schue. I'm kind'a thinking you got stood up, so we might as well get some work done. Or, you know, leave and do something fun."

"Thanks for that perspective, Puck," Will answered, his voice somehow nearly free of sarcasm. "But we're going to wait a few more minutes. Just relax."

I felt a little guilty about holding up their rehearsal, but also secretly pleased that he'd waited for me. No. Not pleased, there was nothing pleasing about it at all, I felt neither pleased nor displeased by any of it. I did decide, however, that since they had been waiting for me it would be rude to turn around and leave, and besides I didn't want to give that Sue woman the satisfaction (she was definitely the kind of person to feel satisfaction at forcing someone to bend to her will). So I shrugged to myself and pushed the door all the way open.

Everyone in the choir room turned to look at me, including Will, and I remembered suddenly how strange, how unpleasant, it felt to be unable to control my own actions because as he smiled, I could not help but smile back.

"Hey," I said, not just to him but to the room in general. "Sorry I'm late, I got a little lost."

"It's fine," Will said, still smiling, standing up and coming toward me. "I'm just glad you made it. I think you're really going to enjoy this."

"I'm sure I am," I answered, and I was still smiling too because… Well if he was I had to be and god it was irritating.

He turned toward the class, gesturing that I should come forward, and began to introduce me. "Okay guys, this is my friend, Ms.-"

I didn't wait for him to realize that he didn't know my last name and then turn to look at me in consternation; the kids would pick up on that in a heartbeat. "Honor," I completed smoothly. "Just Honor, I'm not your teacher or anything."

A very sexy looking girl in a cheerleading uniform raised her hand and, like the boy with the mohawk, began speaking without being called. "Okay, what kind of name is Honor, anyway?"

"Like you're one to talk, _Santana_," Puck said, laughing.

"Isn't that one of the seven deadly sins?" another cheerleader inquired, looking genuinely confused.

"Uh, no, Brittany, you're thinking of… Something else," Will told her, his voice admirably patient.

"Excuse me," the pretty boy sitting next to the black girl (I was really going to have to learn their names) began, "but are those Christian Louboutin Bourge boots, and how did you get them? They're from the Spring 2010 collection, I don't even think you can order them yet."

Well, hell. "I don't think so," I answered with a weak laugh. "I got them at, um, Macy's."

"But they have the distinctive red sole," he challenged. How had he spotted that? How did this kid know so much about fashion?

"Oh. Well, uh…" I seriously had no idea how to respond, but thankfully Will saved me.

"Kurt, come on, you can interrogate her about her boots later," he interrupted. "Why don't you get into your places and we'll show Honor what we've been working on?"

Kurt didn't answer, only looked at me very closely, and I realized he might be even more of a danger to my cover than that evil Sylvester woman. This kid was sharp and obviously had an eye for detail. I smiled at him weakly.

"Come on guys, lets do this," Will prompted, and the kids all got into formation. "It would be better if we could do it on stage, but we didn't reserve it ahead of time so…"

"Oh, don't worry about it, this is great," I responded.

"Great," he echoed, grinning, before nodding at the musicians waiting for their cue.

They proceeded to do an impressive version of Jay Sean's _Down_, which I confess I really like even though R&B is definitely not my genre. And the way they did it was very… Innovative, I guess would be the word, dividing it into parts, many of the kids taking solos. As the dark-haired girl, Rachel, absolutely killed hers, it hit me that what Will had told me was true, these kids were all genuinely talented, several of them talented enough to make it in the industry if they really wanted to. I looked at Will, saw him beaming at the kids, saw how proud he was of them, and wondered what kind of difference it might have made in my life, to have had a teacher like that, one who believed in me and encouraged my dreams and wanted me to achieve them. Not that things didn't work out well for me and all, professionally at least, but maybe I would have stayed in Lima a bit longer, finished high school, avoided a lot of drama, if I'd had support like this and an outlet for all the music inside of me that hadn't had anywhere to go except into the world, taking me with it.

It would have been like having an ally, I realized. It would have made all the difference, and he had forsaken other dreams, other futures he might have had, in order to give these kids something I hadn't even realized I'd needed, and it was… Awe-inspiring, I guess. The depth of his love for and dedication to them.

The song came to an end, the kids grinning and high-fiving one another, and Will turned to me. "Well?" he asked eagerly. "What'd you think?"

"I thought… They were brilliant," I whispered, mind reeling. Because aside from that, I also thought I was in way more trouble than I'd realized.

**TBC**

_I really do wish they would do a version of _Down _on Glee, because I love the song but can't stand Jay Sean._


	13. x The Plan

So, I had a very productive night writing, and I'm wayyy ahead of the game, so I can afford to be kind today *smile*

_For _Dementedx_, because it's her birthday. Also for _Greys has become my life_, because I love her, and because I may be a tease, but I still know how to deliver, I hope..._

**Which reminds me**: Please skip this chapter if you're offended by, or too young to read, **graphic adult content**. The story will still make sense. I think._  
_

**13**

An hour later, after all the kids had left, Will and I sat side by side on the piano bench, closer together than was strictly proper, his body leaning into mine while I held myself rigid. I was doing my best not to feel exhilarated by our proximity, reminding myself that I'd be saying goodbye for good- and for the best- in just a few minutes, that everything that was ever meant to happen between us had happened already. Of course, that didn't explain why I was lingering with him like this, but I didn't want to examine it too closely and as you know I'm very, very good at that.

My fingers trailed idly over the piano keys, and somehow "idly" became "with intent", and then I was playing a bit of the new song I'd been working on earlier. It was still rough, still raw, but I really thought it might turn into something useful when I got home…

"That's really nice," Will said, stilling my hands by placing one of his on one of mine. "What is it? I didn't know you played."

Startled by the pleasant warmth that single soft touch created in me, I pulled away from him immediately, folding both my hands in my lap, and he looked a little confused by my movements. "It's nothing, really, just something I made up," I answered, which was true.

"Oh. Well, it was nice. I could play you something if you want," he offered, "Or we could play something together if there's anything you know."

"Really, I don't know anything," I insisted. "I haven't had lessons since I was seven." This was also true; my mother had fired my piano teacher because all of that musical nonsense was distracting me from real life, or church or something, but it didn't stop me from learning because I couldn't help myself. I tried but really I couldn't.

He gave me a sidelong glance, smiled softly. "Okay, I'll play this, then…" And he began to play _Summerview_ as though he knew just what it would do to me. Considering that we'd discussed it, maybe he did. I felt a new tension in the air, one I easily recognized, and I reminded myself of the plan. Of saying goodbye, of meaning it.

I stood abruptly.

"Thanks so much for inviting me, Will; I had an awesome time, the kids were amazing. I think I'm going to go. It was nice to meet you, nice to see you again." I tried to keep my tone casual, friendly, but really I think the best I could do was distant, which made sense considering I was trying to put as much distance between us as possible. He looked up at me, finished playing the chorus, humming along, and of course my mind supplied the words: _And the roads I've known will never lead me home to you/Without you, there's nowhere to go home to._

God I wished I'd never written that song.

Then he stood, closing the piano and slinging his messenger bag over his shoulder. "I'll walk you; the school's empty by now and all the doors will be locked, you'll need my key to get out."

"Thanks," I murmured, falling into step behind him, grateful that he was keeping a bit of distance.

"I think the kids really liked you," he said as he led me down the hall. He knew his way unerringly, of course, and I followed him through the bewildering corridors. "They don't always warm up to people right away."

I thought of the coolly observant stare Kurt had subjected me to throughout my visit but didn't say anything. "I thought they were great," I answered sincerely, more comfortable now that we were in a position less likely to lead to me doing something I'd regret. "Not just their performance, but the kids themselves. They all really look up to you, you know?"

"I don't know about _that_." He chuckled self-deprecatingly. "You've never seen Rachel storm out of practice after accusing me of trying to ruin her career. She does it at least once a week."

I grinned at the image, finding it easy to imagine. "And are you?"

"Am I what?"

"Trying to ruin her career?" I teased.

"No, just trying to teach her that the whole world doesn't revolve around her and her talent," he answered wryly. "I'm not crazy, I know she's amazing, I know she'll be a sensation someday. And then maybe the world _will_ revolve around her. But not now. She needs to just be a kid, you know?"

And of course I drew no parallels between this and my own adolescence at all.

"But honestly, Will," I said, my voice completely serious. "You do something special for these kids, you give them something and… That's important. It is."

He looked at me, smiled slightly. "Thanks."

I looked away, embarrassed by my words and angry with myself for saying them, for thinking them.

We arrived in front of an office, and Will took out his keys, unlocking the door. "Sorry, this will only take a second," he said. "I forgot a folder of papers to grade."

"It's no problem," I responded with a shrug, though in reality I felt like clawing my way out of my skin to get away from him. The office was quite small, walled in glass, and I felt trapped in there with him so close. I perched on his desk to achieve some distance, physical and mental, as he flipped through some files in his cabinet. Apparently finding what he'd been searching for, he withdrew a folder and tucked it into his messenger bag.

"All done," he announced, reaching for my hands because… I'm not sure why. To help me balance as I climbed down from the desk? I don't know, I just know that he reached out to me and I grasped his hands in return, and his palms were so strong and smooth and warm, and then the one thing I'd been trying so hard to avoid happened and he was setting his mouth softly to mine.

I'm not going to pretend I didn't have a choice. His lips were barely touching mine, his hands exerting no pressure where he held me, and there was a respectable foot of distance between our bodies, at least. Undoubtedly I could have ended the kiss anytime I wanted to, and he would have walked me out and said goodbye like the gentleman he was. But the whisper of his mouth on mine felt so unbelievably good, and a familiar refrain began in my head. _This is a bad, bad idea. But I want him. Very, very dangerous. But I want him. If you have a heart he might be capable of breaking it. But I __**want**__ him._ And, being unused to denying myself anything I wanted, I pulled him closer.

He came forward with no resistance, pressing his body against mine as I cradled him between my legs. I released his hands, curling my arms around his neck, threading my fingers through his hair, and he responded by cupping my face, stroking my cheeks. My lips parted slightly and his tongue slipped between them, tasting me, and I met it with my own, tasting him back. It was soft and gentle and not at all frantic, and I knew that made it perilous to me but couldn't bring myself to care.

Carefully, he reached up and removed my hat, and my hair tumbled around my shoulders for him to run his fingers through. They trailed down to my neck, teasing the thin skin of my throat and collarbone, and then his mouth followed, abandoning mine to lightly kiss my pulse and clavicle. All of these touches were feather-light, almost non-existent, but I felt them throughout my entire body, warmth pooling between my legs. He stroked my breasts gently through my sweater before moving his hands to my knees.

I made a surprised sound, one that wasn't a protest really but I suppose he may have interpreted it as one, and he returned his lips to mine, silencing me. There was a bit more pressure now, his kiss a bit more forceful, but overall the entire encounter remained languorous, as though the outside world didn't exist at all and even if it did we had all the time in it. While he kissed me, he moved one hand to my waist, steadying me, and slid the other under my skirt, caressing my inner thigh with the same maddening feather-light strokes he'd been using on my neck and shoulders, teasing me by brushing his fingers against the front of my panties but going no further.

Moaning, I shifted slightly against him and could feel his lips form a smile. He caressed me gently through the thin silk and I raised my hips, trying to prolong the contact; he rewarded me by applying just enough pressure to send a shiver of pleasure through me. Then he used his fingers to nudge the fabric aside, and I inhaled sharply as he teased my slick flesh, gently parting my folds and exploring me by touch. It was bewildering, the intensity of feeling his delicate strokes awoke in me, the sensations just as strong, or stronger, as if he'd been touching me hard, rubbing frantically. When he carefully slid one finger inside me, I cried out against his mouth in something closely approaching ecstasy, wondering how on earth he was doing it, what tricks he was using to take me apart.

He added another finger and slid them both deep, his movements slow and deliberate, pushing forward and stretching me tenderly. I gasped as he began twisting his fingers, searching inside for something, gasped again when he found it, and could feel my body tensing around him as he teased me. Breaking our kiss, he lifted his head, his eyes very dark and green as he watched my face, his expression very serious.

"Will you come for me like this?" he murmured, his voice husky. "It's all I could think of during rehearsal, sinking my fingers into your wet cunt, watching your face while you came."

"God, Will," I breathed, almost unbearably aroused by everything he was doing, everything he was saying, and his voice, the smooth measured way he was saying it. "Do you teach your kids with that mouth? Oh, _god_."

His lips quirked with amusement. "I'll teach _you_," he whispered, moving his hand just enough that his thumb brushed against my clit. The world came to a screaming halt as the effects of all the gentle touches he'd subjected me to converged in that one gesture, and then I was screaming too, almost silently, shuddering against him and around him, unable to look away from the intensity of his eyes as he watched me. I felt weightless and adored and utterly exposed as the pleasure of what he was doing to me coursed through my veins, and the expression on his face while he looked at me was both tender and triumphant.

He kissed me as I came down, as deeply as I wanted him to, and I unzipped his pants because he was too busy tangling his hands in my hair, holding me firmly against his mouth. I freed his cock, for which I can only imagine he was very grateful, considering how constricting his slacks had become, and stroked the hard, hot flesh as he moaned and gasped against my lips. It was his turn to be incoherent, and really it was only fair. Lifting my hips, wrapping my legs around him, I guided him closer, and he pushed into me in one forceful thrust. The feel of him inside as he began to move was almost uncomfortable because I was still so sensitive, but it was worth it for the desperate way he kissed me and clutched at me and pounded into me. After a few short minutes he made a choked, strangled kind of sound against my lips, and I could feel the warmth of his release deep at my core.

Removing his mouth from mine, he buried his head in the crook of my neck, panting and gasping for breath. I should have been thinking about what a horrible mistake I had just made, about how stupid I was and how this hadn't been the plan at all, but I wasn't. The most I could do was stroke his damp hair and rub his neck and shoulders, and he planted soft, open-mouthed kisses on my throat. As his breathing finally slowed, he laughed a little, raising his head to look at me, brushing my hair out of my eyes.

"What?" I asked, wondering what the joke was.

"I will never be able to walk into this office again without getting hard," he said, shaking his head ruefully.

I couldn't help it. I laughed and leaned forward and kissed him and wondered what the hell I was thinking and then shook my head. "That is your own damn fault, I had nothing to do with it."

"Oh, I think you did," he countered. "But for now why don't we get out of here? We could grab some takeout, head back to your place…"

"That sounds perfect," I answered, because he was still so flushed and handsome and I was still so high on the afterglow and anyway my brilliant plan was already shot to hell so why not?

**TBC**

_P.S. Longest chapter to date!_


	14. Okay Okay

_For the birthday girls, _Dementedx_ and _Greys has become my life_, as well as the lovely _Valentinas_ and _DoRaM_. As always, thank you all so much for sticking with me!_

**14**

There were a million reasons "why not", of course, and you already know them so there's no point in listing them here. But I will add that even as protecting myself became much more critical, I felt myself wanting to give in. Seeing him teach had shifted something inside me, and whatever distance I'd tried to maintain had disappeared in his office, and I was more susceptible to him now than ever. In a strange way, he reminded me of Emma. They were both so _good_, deep-down good in a way I had never been and certainly will never be. My cynicism, my calculation, my occasional ruthlessness: these things were as foreign to Will as his life of dedication, of service, was to me. It was impossible to see those things in him and not want to touch them, not want to feel them, even if only briefly.

I couldn't help but imagine our two lives as a room walled in glass (not unlike his office), he inside, palm pressed against a clear pane, me on the outside looking in, aligning my hand with his until I can feel a hint of warmth through the barrier. That is the closest I could ever get to knowing what it is to be so good, to have not just a passion but a calling, because that was clearly what teaching was for him, and that is not what music is for me. Music is… Something I must do, something that takes hold of me and won't let go and feels like an addiction, or like both a disease and the cure. And even if no one was listening I would have to create it, because there is no other way for me. But it doesn't feel good, doesn't put a light in my eyes like the one in his. I'd never had a light like that.

If I sound jealous, it's only because I was, but that is neither here nor there. The point is that I think I fought pretty valiantly, but in the end it was too exhausting to push him away and all my ghosts and memories too, especially when his very presence seemed to dispel them. So I gave up, gave in, not for good but just for the night, and I told myself that since my previous plan hadn't worked out, it might be better to just improvise. What was the difference if we said goodbye in the morning instead? Either way he'd be gone and I'd be on a plane Friday and all of this would be nothing more than a pleasant memory. And again, I never believe myself when I lie like that but I do it all the time anyway. Obviously.

So I got into his ridiculous blue sedan (despite my perfectly reasonable fears that the muffler dragging on the asphalt might strike enough sparks to set something on fire) and we picked up Chinese food and then drove back to my mother's house. We set up in the living room, building little pagodas on the coffee table with our many takeout boxes. Will, being a normal human being, had ordered normal food, whereas I, being a female in the entertainment industry, had ordered tofu and steamed brown rice and vegetable spring rolls. He'd teased me about it but hadn't complained, which I thought was very forbearing of him, especially as my additions had ratcheted up the price considerably and he'd refused to take any of the money I'd offered him. I felt guilty about that, since I didn't know how much teachers made but suspected it was somewhat less than the $5 million I took in the year prior, but at the same time it felt good to have someone trying to take care of me whether I needed it or not. And then I hated myself for thinking that and thereby setting feminism back 50 years.

Anyway. We set up our little Chinese takeout temples and then demolished them, eating straight out of the boxes with chopsticks, and Will kept stealing my tofu and pretending he hated it (or maybe he did hate it, but really tofu is not that bad, once you get used to it). It was all so relaxed and normal, which made it completely foreign to me, but it was as much of a distraction from everything I wanted to avoid thinking about as dragging him up the stairs and ripping his clothes off would have been. Perhaps ever so slightly less enjoyable, but maybe not. Talking to him was exciting because he was talented and intelligent and had well-informed opinions about everything, especially in regards to music, though the realization that I'd just as soon have a conversation with him as fuck him was unwelcome and worrisome. Exponentially more terrifying was the fact that I'd stopped fighting it. But then I've already explained that.

After all the food was either devoured (_Seriously, Will, where do you put it?_) or nestled snugly in the sparklingly clean fridge, we sat together on the couch, me sideways with my legs draped over his lap, his arm around my waist. We talked about nothing, everything, I don't even know what, I just know that we sat that way for a long time, our voices rising and falling, holding and listening to each other. It felt good, Will absently stroking my thighs, me toying with his hair, the two of us saying whatever random thoughts came into our heads and discovering the other found them fascinating. It just felt really good. At some point, our conversation meandered back to our mutual love of music, and he spotted my guitar in the corner.

"Can I play it?" he asked, pure longing on his face.

"If you'll sing something," _and hopefully not notice the fact that it's a 1957 Gibson Super 400C because a $15,000 guitar might be a bit difficult to explain away._

He grinned at me, the smile of a little boy on Christmas morning who just got everything on his list, and abandoned me in favor of the guitar without a second thought. I didn't blame him; the Super 400C is sexy as hell, after all.

Strumming it experimentally, he cast me an approving look. "Perfectly in tune… Beautiful tone, wow. What kind of guitar is this?"

"Oh, it's a Gibson. Not sure what exactly, I got it a long time ago," I fibbed.

"It sounds amazing," he said, a note of awe in his voice, and I couldn't help but grin proudly even though, okay, it's not like I built the guitar or anything. But I'd had the good sense to purchase it (_well_ before I could really afford it) and surely that counts for something.

"Thanks. But stop trying to distract me," I added. "If you're going to play that guitar, you have to _play_ it."

Returning to the couch and arranging himself so that he was sitting sideways, cross-legged and facing me, he continued to caress the strings. "Is there anything you want to hear?"

I was distracted by the sight of his long, artistic fingers coaxing various chords out of my guitar. They were, as I'd noticed when I first met him, elegant and artistic hands, and obviously talented. I imagined they could ease music out of anything they touched, including myself on occasion. "Hmmm… Surprise me."

He gave me a raised-eyebrows kind of look that clearly said _You're no help_, thought for a moment and then brightened. "Okay, I've got it. I'll even sing, too."

"It's a requirement," I reminded him.

Smiling softly, he began a rendition of _Down_, the song the glee kids had sung for me, but slower, sweeter, or maybe it's just that his voice made everything sound sweeter.

"_You oughta know/Tonight is the night to let it go/Put on a show/I wanna see how you lose control…_" He cast me a wicked glance at that line, and I laughed.

"Those lyrics are ridiculous, you know," I told him.

"Yes," he agreed, still playing the song. "But I'm supposed to be singing right now, stop talking. You made me miss the last half of the verse."

"Sorry," I said, completely unrepentant, and he jumped directly into the chorus.

"_So baby don't worry/You are my only/You won't be lonely/Even if the sky is falling down/You'll be my only/No need to worry/Baby are you down down down down down?_" The gentle look he gave me as he sang these words was extraordinarily disconcerting, and I was glad when he brought the song to a close after finishing the chorus (which, if you're wondering, involved singing the word "down" approximately 50 more times: this is the lyrical genius I'm competing with).

I leaned into him, looked deep into his eyes despite the way it made me feel like I was drowning in them, suffocated by their depth, and the way it made me feel like I wanted that. He needed to understand that I meant what I was about to say. "You're incredible, Will, really. You could be on Broadway; you could be on the radio. You have a real gift."

He colored and smiled, pleased. "Thanks. I used to think… I mean, in high school I really wanted to try to do something like that but… I don't know, Terri thought econ was a better bet so…" trailing off, he shrugged.

"Do you regret it?" I asked, because god knows I would, and I was really wishing I could strangle this Terri woman with my bare hands. Will had the kind of talent that should never have been buried in an economics department, or anywhere else; I was literally clenching my fists in anger at the very thought.

There was a faraway look in his eyes for a moment, as though he was imagining what might have been, and I wondered what the potential future he was seeing looked like. Did he see himself on stage, performing for thousands of people, changing their lives with his voice? Because that's what I saw for him, what I used to see for myself until I made it happen, and surely anyone would want that. But I was wrong, of course, I knew him well enough by now to know that, and when he returned to the present, he shook his head. "No. I mean, I do regret not taking my chance, but I'm glad I ended up doing what I'm doing. Teaching is just… Everything to me. I'd miss it, even if I didn't know what I was missing."

Honestly, how was I supposed to resist him when he said things like this? I didn't bother trying, just closed the distance between us, placed my guitar very very gently on the floor, and brushed my lips against his. He pulled me close, opened his mouth, and we kissed deeply, slowly, for what seemed like hours. The kiss lasted until all the alarm bells going off in my head were silenced, until all my worries and fears were pushed away, and I was just left with this overwhelming suspicion that if this was the last time I saw him I would regret it. And that knowledge terrified me, but I knew it was the truth, and what on earth was happening to me?

He pulled away finally, lifting his head just far enough that he could look into my face. His lips, which were somewhat thin but in an attractive kind of way, were swollen from the pressure of mine and I realized, not for the first time, that he was so beautiful looking at him was almost painful. Almost.

"Is this against the rules?" he asked, expression serious, and I wasn't sure what he meant by _this_ but I knew it was dangerous.

"You have no idea," I said, because he didn't. _This_, whatever this was turning into, wasn't just against every single rule of one-night stands, it was against every single rule I'd ever made for myself. But he made me want to break them, and it was… There are not enough synonyms for _terrifying_ in my thesaurus, nowhere near enough to convey how this made me feel.

"Look," he began, voice soft and low. "I'm taking the kids bowling Friday night to celebrate Sectionals. You should come with us. I just…" His expression had morphed into one of confusion, almost, as though he was surprised by what he was saying, which I could relate to because he was surprising the hell out of me. It's not that I didn't think he had enjoyed the time we'd spent together, but I'd never seen any sign from him until now that he'd thought about the implications. There was so much to know about him, I realized, because as straightforward as he seemed I knew he must be complicated. He'd have to be, to be both the man I seduced and the man I woke up with. "I want to know you. I can't really think beyond that, I just… I want you there. With me. For me."

I closed my eyes tightly, reminding myself that I was weak, and looking at him made me weaker, and this was the worst idea ever, literally ever, and if I knew what was good for me I'd be on a plane Friday night as planned. But then, strangely, I saw Emma's face, heard her voice telling me to give myself permission to be happy. What Would Emma Do? She had given that to herself, permission to be excited about a potential future with the man she'd loved forever, and I... I'd never allowed myself that luxury, because if something can fill you with joy it can also fill you with despair and I believed I'd rather just feel nothing at all. But that was before I knew how much better joy felt than nothing, and I couldn't make myself think about how much worse despair felt than anything.

_And anyway_, whispered that voice in the back of my mind that rationalizes all my bad decisions, _It's only bowling. You like bowling._

When I opened my eyes he was staring at me intently, a look of apprehension on his face, and I imagined my expression must be the same but for entirely different reasons.

"Okay," I said hesitantly, and it was the most difficult word I'd ever spoken. "Okay."

There were other things I should have said, I know, many other things, confessions and truths and if ever there was a moment for everything to come out, this was it. But he was kissing me again, and I wasn't thinking clearly, and anyway it was only bowling, and then I'd be going home.

**TBC**

_P.S. New longest chapter... By four words._


	15. Slumming

_As always, a huge thanks to my very sweet reviewers _christierrr_, _DoRaM _and _someWhereinRoma_! I appreciate all your kind words, and I'm glad you're enjoying the story thus far._

_This chapter is dedicated to _**traceit**_, who very kindly read ahead in the story to help me with some concerns I had. If you enjoy this and the next four chapters, it's due to her!_

**15**

The play-by-play of what happened next is not particularly interesting or exciting. Will left almost immediately after our conversation, reminding me with a heart-stopping grin that it was a school night, kissing me softly. I wrapped my arms around his neck, holding him against me when he would have pulled away, feeling his mouth move gently over mine, smile over mine, drawing out our goodbye kiss in case I happened to come to my senses before Friday and this was it, a fond farewell with a capital G and K, the last one, the only one. He laughed and brushed his lips against mine one more time, briefly, and told me he'd see me on Friday at 7.

I then spent the next 24 hours at least vacillating back and forth, back and forth in a way that was already tedious to me and I must imagine has become even more so to you. _I will, I won't, I can, I can't, I shall, I shan't… _An endless loop, probably the endless loop that should have preoccupied me before I recklessly chose to attend his glee rehearsal. But I had been so confident in myself then, so certain I had the willpower to look at him and say "That's very nice and I'd quite like some but I'm on a diet, you see." Or the equivalent. I knew better this time, I really did, and that should have made everything easier but it didn't.

At midnight, which is only 9 p.m. California time so it was fine, I called my assistant and told her to change my flight to Sunday. Then I called myself an idiot, repeatedly, fluently, using every curse word I'd picked up in approximately 10 years as a touring musician (I believe we're right below sailors in that department, but only barely).

Everything else, I'd known what I was doing, had choices, made them, and maybe hadn't made the best ones but they'd been decisions. This… Felt different. It felt like when he smiled at me and I was compelled to mirror the expression. It felt like making music, like needing to do it, can't-eat-can't-sleep-can't-think until it's done, and there was no other way for me, and I hated it. Because I knew it would accomplish nothing, feeling this way would accomplish nothing, seeing him again would accomplish nothing. There were so many obstacles, too many, more than I could count.

But it was done. And I didn't sleep at all Thursday night, instead lying awake in the bed we'd shared in the guestroom (not for sentimental reasons, I swear, it was just the only room in the house that I could stand), cradling my guitar and stroking sounds from it, sounds that communicated what I was feeling far better than I've ever been able to do with words. If Will had heard it, maybe he'd have understood what he was doing to me, maybe he'd have found a way to set me free of it. I couldn't tell him he was killing me because I didn't realize that's what was happening, but he might have discerned it in what I played, might have known, and by the way my genre is rock, more or less, not emo so I'm not sure where all this was coming from but it's all true.

I wanted to call Emma, but I couldn't face her cheery optimism, her assurances that everything would be fine. They would undoubtedly be fine for her, and I was glad, but whatever I was dealing with was something beyond her comprehension and mine too.

Friday. I was late, almost two hours, just to prove to myself that I could make a choice about something. It didn't feel worth it when I saw the expression on Will's face and realized he'd been worried about me. He separated himself from the group, which had taken over the four lanes on the far side of the alley, came to me, grasped both my hands.

"Is everything alright?" he asked, and he was so genuinely concerned that it killed me just a little more.

"Of course," I answered, hoping my smile didn't look as forced as it felt.

"I thought you wouldn't come," he admitted, looking at me with a kind of squint, as though I was a puzzle he couldn't quite solve.

"I thought I wouldn't, either," I admitted in return. "Shouldn't."

He smiled and I think it was genuine, unlike mine. "No. I'm glad you're here."

I wasn't. I wasn't glad about any of it.

"Do you want me to go with you to pick up your bowling shoes?" he asked after a moment. He'd clearly been waiting for me to say something but the truth was too rude and I couldn't tell him what he wanted to hear, that I was glad to be there, or at least I couldn't tell him that and make him believe it; I felt like an 18th century French aristocrat approaching the guillotine, and really _apprehensive_ seems like too mild a word for it, and god this was going to be messy.

Anyway. I told him to get back to the kids, reminding him of the myriad kinds of trouble they could get into without him, and he grinned and told me I was so right. Then I stood in line to exchange my red leather peeptoe flats for a pair of hideous bowling shoes so that I could go join them. Just as I was handing them over, hoping they'd be safe in the cubby behind the counter, I heard a musical voice at my side.

"Oh, the Alexander McQueen zipper flat? Those are available to the general public, I believe. Slumming, Norah? They're less conspicuous than the Bourge boots, I'll give you that," Kurt said, a little smirk on his sweet choirboy face.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I answered, dismissively, though I could hardly hear my own words over the blood rushing in my ears and the pounding of my heart. "I mean, you're right about the shoes, but I got them on sale. And my name is Honor."

"Oh, I know." Kurt's voice was very bright and very smug as he said this. "Honor Charity Castlereagh, right?" At my look of shock, he rolled his eyes. "Look, your real name isn't a state secret, okay? I found it in an unauthorized biography in the library. And your disguise is kind of pathetic. Glasses and a hat? Who are you, Clark Kent?"

And then I didn't have to worry about the volume of the beating of my heart because it stopped. I looked at him, the smug expression so incongruous with his innocent features, and grabbed his arm, pulling him off to the side by the closed snack bar.

"Why are you doing this?" I demanded. "Did you tip off some tabloid? Are you hoping I'll pay you to keep this quiet?"

Kurt rolled his eyes. "Oh please. This isn't about you, alright? What is going on with you and Mr. Schue, and does he know who you are?"

I couldn't believe I was being interrogated by a 15 year-old, and very seriously, too. "Will- that is, Mr. Schuester and I are just friends. Obviously I'm a music fan, I wanted to see his glee club perform. It's nothing."

This time he didn't say _Oh, please_, but the lift of his eyebrows said it well enough. "You're wearing one of his shirts, and I find it difficult to believe you were trading clothing platonically."

Well, fuck. "Honestly, Kurt, this isn't any of your business," I answered, trying for a voice of authority.

It didn't work. "You're wrong," Kurt said fiercely. "Mr. Schue has been through a lot recently. His wife is a whack-job, he doesn't need another woman messing with his head."

I shook my head. "It isn't like that. We met, and I… And he… I just… God, I can't believe I'm saying any of this."

"You're not actually saying anything," he pointed out.

Sighing, I shook my head. "I know. He doesn't know who I am. But nothing is going on, nothing serious, I swear. We hardly know each other."

Kurt looked at me shrewdly. "But you want to know him, don't you?"

I glared at him. "You are far too observant for your own good, and it will get you into a lot of trouble someday. Anyway, it doesn't matter what I want; I'm returning to Los Angeles Sunday. I just wanted to see him one last time before I go, and if you ever tell anyone I said any of this I will unleash a team of lawyers who will dog your every step for the rest of your existence, okay?"

"I won't say anything," he told me. "But if you hurt him, you'll regret it. Mr. Schue is the best teacher I've ever had, any of us have ever had, and I don't want to see him unhappy."

"Well, I don't want to make him unhappy." I snapped, though I wasn't so angry now that I could breathe again. In a strange way, I was touched by his concern for Will, for which I could hardly blame the boy. Something about Will just inspired loyalty, the innate goodness in him demanding it even of those of us who were not quite so pure.

"Good." Kurt paused, then took something out of his purse (maybe it was actually a messenger bag, but not so much on him). He held it out to me, and I realized it was a copy of my first album. "With all that unpleasantness out of the way, will you sign this for me? Despite my previous threats, I'm actually one of your biggest fans."

Forcing a smile, I used the Sharpie he gave me. _Kurt: Speak of this and you're a dead man. XOXO, Norah_. After a moment's thought, I put a little smiley face after "dead man", just in case he did decide to go to the tabloids. Death threats are not the kind of things that should be made in public, on tape or in writing, and the smiley face made the note look like a joke even though I think I might have been serious.

"Now, shall we join the others?" I prodded after returning the CD to him. "I'm not wearing these bowling shoes for their stylish good looks."

He looked at his feet in disgust, looked at me, fixed his hair and said "You're telling me."

I wasn't feeling especially amused; I felt frightened and upset and the gaiety of the bowling alley just made every emotion worse, made everything seem darker in comparison. But I laughed with Kurt anyway. Just as we approached the group, Will happened to look up and caught sight of us coming. Well, he caught sight of me coming anyway, I'm not sure if Kurt really registered, and even though he was already smiling, his expression both brightened and softened somehow in a way that started an echoing brightness, a warmth, inside me. It felt good, so I allowed myself to enjoy it for a brief second before tamping down on it ruthlessly.

"_That_ is what worries me," Kurt murmured, giving me a severe look before rejoining his bowling partner.

Well, it worried me too.

**TBC**


	16. x The Key

_For _blaue-banane_, _someWhereinRoma_ and _Greys has become my life_. Thank you so much for your continued support and feedback! Knowing you're reading motivates me to always try to better myself! Also for_**traceit**_, whose advice was invaluable in constructing this chapter._

Please skip this chapter if you're offended by, or too young to read, **graphic adult content**._  
_

**16**

Bowling alleys are horrible places to attempt to think deeply about anything. There's so much laughter and noise and activity, everything bright and swirling and fun like some kind of carnival, and all of that makes it so difficult to focus. I managed it somehow, however, forced myself to seriously consider the situation I found myself in. Will was bowling, and I was watching, and just the line of his body as he moved stirred something inside me, and I thought… _This is not good. This is not possible. _And then I watched him interact with the kids, watched him smiling and laughing with them and it was worse than watching him teach because suddenly I could picture him with a child of his own and that was getting way too close to something I was never ever ever going to think about. So I thought, panicked, that I had to do something, anything, to end this. Everything about him was just anathema to me, or should be, and I didn't want it. I wanted all the doors inside of me to remain closed and locked, to keep whatever I was within contained, safe, and I didn't want him using his smile as the skeleton key that would grant him entry and leave whatever I was, everything I was, at his mercy. The risk was too great, and I was not strong enough to bear it, I knew.

And yet knowing that didn't prevent the unbelievable stupidity that was to follow, I suppose because there was no way to prevent it. Once more I was compelled, once more I had no choice, and when he opened his passenger door for me and kissed me softly in front of both Kurt and Mercedes I allowed it because I had to. When he laced his fingers with mine and drove both his students home single-handed, it was the same. But it wasn't until we were walking from his car parked on the street to the front door of my mother's house that everything really became clear to me. It was chilly, and as we made our way up the path, I shivered. There were only a few more feet to go, but Will paused, removed his coat and draped it over my shoulders, caressing me gently in the process

And that was it. That was all it took, his coat, still warm from his body heat, saturated with his scent, cocooned around me, and I realized that nothing was going to close those doors he'd opened inside me, nothing could keep him out, because _he_ was the key. Not his goodness, sweetness, dedication or smile, just him, all of him, and there was no point fighting it because it had happened already, happened despite everything, happened in spite of myself. I want to be very clear: I did not _let_ this happen. It just… Happened to me. Past tense. It was done.

For a split second, I wanted to laugh at the irony. I thought of all the men who had wanted me throughout the years: rich men, handsome men, powerful men, famous men. Some had been all four. They had showered me with gifts, paraded me on their arms, introduced me to foreign heads of state, written me songs. But none of their gifts had ever affected me the way Will's gesture had, none of them had ever affected me the way he had, period. I didn't understand why, still don't completely. All I know is that his simple act undid something within me, made me feel… Cherished, I suppose, in a way no extravagant piece of jewelry or dramatic gesture ever had. And when we were alone together in the guest bedroom in my mother's house and he turned to me, touched his mouth carefully to mine and began to strip me slowly, there was no protest, no struggle, not with him and not with myself. There was no other way for me.

He removed his coat from around my shoulders first, letting it drop to the floor, and he pulled me close, stroking my back and arms.

"Are you cold?" he murmured against my ear before placing a kiss on my cheek, on my neck.

And I just shook my head because I wasn't, and I could feel his lips smiling against my skin, and then he was unbuttoning his shirt, which I'd made my own throughout the week. He slid each button from its buttonhole very deliberately, pausing to brush his finger across the bare skin each opened button revealed, pausing to brush his mouth across it too. When the shirt finally dropped to the floor, I was already aching with want, with need. But he just smiled at me, knelt on the ground, removed each of my shoes, caressed each foot which should have been weird but wasn't somehow. I tried to help him, tried to unbutton my jeans for him, but he stopped me with a hand on mine.

"Let me," he said, and I remembered the way he'd undressed me after our first encounter, the way I'd thought it was some kind of mild kink. Now I realized that it was his way of revealing me, of seeing me, no different from watching my face as I came, no different from wanting to know me. So I let him, and he pushed my jeans to the floor, helped me step out of them. He trailed his fingers up my calves, stroking slightly behind my knees, following with his lips, up and up and up. I'd never known that my inner thighs were almost as sensitive as what was between them, but he did somehow, and I gave myself to the swells of warm pleasure that were washing over me.

After some amount of time had passed, I have no idea how much, he stood and looked at me, absorbing the sight of my skin contrasting with my lingerie, silk and lace, before reaching out and unhooking my bra. Cupping my breasts, he kissed my neck and chest, leaned down to tease my nipples with his lips and tongue and teeth. His warm mouth sucking each sensitive point wrung soft cries from my throat, which only encouraged him. Distracted as I was by his efforts, I barely noticed when he skimmed one hand down my side and tugged my panties to the floor, though I dimly realized this would mark the first time I was completely naked for sex with him. This fragment of a thought was driven out of my head by his continued gentle assault on my bare flesh, and finally it got to the point where my knees were weak and I had to rest against him to stay standing, and he pulled away to take my hands and guide me to the bed.

I lay down and watched him undress himself, reveling in each new swath of flesh his actions exposed, feeling a sense of awe at the power and beauty of his body. His lean chest was well-toned, lightly dusted with hair, and its broadness tapered perfectly down to his slim hips, his long legs. It wasn't a surprise to me that he was beautiful; I'd always known it, seen it briefly, felt it beneath my fingers. But this was the first time I'd been able to just observe him, just watch him, just see him move without anything, even the touch of his skin, to distract me. And I wanted him as much as I'd wanted him the first time I'd seen him, because nothing we had done so far had assuaged the longing I'd felt then. Possibly nothing ever would, but like every other thought I never wanted to think, I pushed that possibility away.

Approaching the bed, he held out his hands to me, and I grasped them, pulling him close, sighing at the feel of all the golden skin I'd been staring at pressed against mine. It was insistent as hunger, this need to be touched by him, and all my life until now I had been starving and I know how ridiculous this is, it's like a goddamn greeting card or 80's pop ballad or something, but it's just… True, that's how I felt. Our lips met in a deep kiss, tongues rubbing against each other sensually, mimicking the movement of our bodies, and I tried to define the taste of him but couldn't. I'd only ever tasted him desperate before, but now he was something else, something softer, just as intense but less urgent, some word I didn't know.

His hands were moving softly over my body, stroking and caressing my sensitized flesh, and I touched him in return, feeling the steel of his muscles somehow hard beneath the incredible smoothness of his skin, and his cock was the same, hard and smooth and hot in my hand. He gasped against my mouth as I moved my fingers idly up and down his length, and suddenly my motions became like my piano playing had once been, "idly" morphing into "with intent", and I increased the pressure just slightly, and then he was moaning into the crook of my neck and shoulder. It felt good to make him feel good, and it felt better when he returned the favor, sliding his hand very deliberately between my legs and finding me wet and ready.

Gently, he slid two fingers inside of me, and I cried out at the sensation. Even as his fingers stroked me, he began to slowly move down my body, detouring for several long minutes at my breasts, licking and kissing a path down my belly. Then he dropped lower, pressing his mouth softly to my inner thighs, sucking slightly, teasing me until I was an incoherent mess, gasping and begging. I almost sobbed when I finally felt his lips between my legs, felt his tongue darting out to taste me, skimming across my slick flesh. His two fingers were still deep inside me, moving in a steady rhythm, and every delicate sweep of his tongue fit that rhythm perfectly. And then he placed his mouth fully against me, applying a small amount of suction, flicking his tongue against my clit until I hovered at the edge of ecstasy, my back arched, hips raised, fingers flexing convulsively in his hair. He held me suspended like this for what felt like hours, and I was soclose, thisclose, until he carefully eased me back down again.

I dropped my hands to his shoulders, pulling at him urgently, and he rose above me until I pulled his face to mine, meeting him in a fervent kiss, wanting to taste myself on his lips. There was a hint of sweetness to his mouth, something that wasn't quite him, and something about it made me want him inside me with a desperation I can't even describe. He shifted against me until he was almost as close as he could be; I guided him into me because it wasn't close enough. Feeling the blunt pressure of him entering, I gasped his name until, groaning, he buried himself hilt deep. My body was already so sensitive from the torture he'd subjected me to that this single thrust filled me with a searing jolt of pleasure and a profound sense of completion, and I wrapped my arms around him, cradling him and kissing him, and all of this done so tenderly I could hardly believe I was the one doing it. His arms held me just the same, warm and safe to his chest as he moved inside me, never fully withdrawing but rocking gently against me, maintaining contact with my clit, stoking the embers of my desire, fanning them into flame until my entire body burned for him.

And it didn't feel like sex, really, nothing he was doing felt like sex, and I refused to think about what it felt like, it was just different from every other time he'd been inside me. He kissed my cheeks and throat, smiled down at me, tucked my hair behind my ear and laced his fingers with mine and it didn't feel like sex at all, even when I came in his arms. There was no sudden explosion of sensation, there were just the heart-stopping feelings he'd created, building them higher and higher until the next step was ecstasy and I took it, melted into it, my entire body filled with a deep, warm glow, and I'd once thought that pleasure with pain was transcendent but this was painless, a flood of pure joy that left me gasping for breath, gasping his name.

Then he pressed his lips to mine, moved deeper, harder, and opened himself to all the joy I could possibly offer, which was more than I'd ever imagined I possessed or was capable of sharing. He whispered my name over and over and I felt vulnerable again, but somehow his embrace made vulnerability seem safe, and if I thought about it that was horrifying but I decided not to think about it at all.

**TBC**


	17. Disconnect

_For _Valentinas_, who always, always reviews. Also for _**traceit**_, without whose support and advice this chapter would completely suck (and who also reviewed, despite having read the chapter before it was posted)._

**17**

It really worked, you know. I lay there with him, my head on his chest, his fingers gently toying with my hair, and I felt perfect, invincible, unbreakable, real and alive for the first time. All of my senses were heightened, attuned to him, and I was feeling in superlatives: his heart beating in his chest was the most beautiful and important sound I'd ever heard, the feel of his skin on mine the most necessary sensation I'd ever felt, the taste of him on my lips… I could go on and on, because for this short span of time the world was perfect, and anything that wasn't just faded, and he was the only thing that existed suddenly and no wonder I had been terrified of this. It was fucking terrifying. But it felt better than anything, including signing my first record deal, including winning my first Grammy, including all the drugs I experimented with back when I thought I was punk rock. And I was convinced somewhere inside that if I could just keep my mind clear, push everything so far away that it disappeared completely, I could feel like this forever.

But a high like that, a feeling like that, is obviously not sustainable. As much as I tried, the real world slowly intruded, tiny thoughts flitting through my mind like hummingbirds, reminding me to doubt myself, which was one of the things I'd managed to forget. There was nothing to remind me of _why_ quite yet, nor that I should doubt him, too, for which I was grateful. And when Will startled all my little darting hummingbird thoughts away with the sound of his voice, I was grateful for that too.

"Can I tell you something?" he asked, and his voice was soft and drowsy; he sounded just the way I felt, and I smiled and nodded against his chest, hoping he'd understand I was too tired to actually say _Yes_.

He placed a finger under my chin, tilting my face up until our eyes met, and his were warm and melting and almost gold and his smile was the same, golden and shining somehow and seriously, seriously I couldn't breathe. "I know we don't know each other that well, and I know we didn't exactly meet in a normal way" (_pretty normal for me, actually_) "but this past week I've just… Enjoyed your company. And I know things are complicated for me right now, but I hope… I really want to keep seeing you. I really… I don't know, really like you… And whatever… And this isn't coming out right at all." He laughed ruefully, gathered his thoughts, trailed one finger gently down my cheek. "I want to be with you, Honor. That's all."

This is probably the speech every girl wants to hear after what we'd just shared, and for a split second I felt something soaring inside me, something I suspected might be hope but was too unfamiliar with the emotion to define it properly, and anyway it disappeared far too quickly for me to analyze. Because all my doubts, all my apprehensions flooded back full force, extinguishing whatever that little spark had been and I felt… As if I was being tricked into something. There was no way I was being freely offered what I wanted most in the world at that moment with no catch. And then there was an amazing sense of clarity, and my mind became almost perfectly blank as all the thoughts I'd been thinking came together and solidified into one unavoidable bit of logic: if Will thought he wanted to be with me, it was only because he didn't really know me, and if he knew me at all he'd certainly change his mind.

It was better, I realized, to change it for him. Any other way would hurt too much.

I sat up abruptly, pulling out of his embrace, pushing away from him. "You don't really," I said, and my voice was strangely mechanical, strangely unemotional considering all the emotions I was feeling.

He looked up at me, confused. "I think I'd be the expert on what I want, here."

"You want whatever it is you think I am," I told him, the words coming quickly because the underlying thought had been in my head for so long and it was undeniably true. "You don't know anything about me, anything about my life. And you… You're good and kind and just… _Good_ and you think everyone else is like that but they're not. You'd know that if you knew anything about me, anything real."

"That's not true," he protested, sitting up and facing me, and inside I was wishing he'd just give up, just bow to the inevitable, because this was so hard for me. _This_ was the definition of self control, looking into his eyes as he offered me something completely invaluable and refusing it. But it was better. It would be better than accepting it and then having it taken away. "That's not true at all. I know everything I need to."

I thought about everything I was hiding from him and laughed. "Like what?" I demanded, scornful. "What do you think you know about me?"

He took my hands in his, wouldn't let me pull away, and spoke as quickly as I had, urgently. "Look… When I confronted my very-soon-to-be-ex-wife about… everything, she said something that really struck home. She told me that our marriage only worked because I didn't feel good about myself-"

"Yes, well, she is a horrible human being," _and it's not fair that you should end up with another one._

"She was right," he continued without acknowledging my interruption. "She made me feel awful about myself and she used that to keep me with her. But you… Whenever I'm with you, I feel like I can do anything. You _tell me_ I can do anything. Most of the time, I hated who I was when I was with Terri. The person I am when I'm with you… He's who I want to be."

His voice was so earnest, his words so touching, and he was just so beautiful that I wanted to cry, which is noteworthy in and of itself, but I didn't. I gently freed my hands from his, shaking my head. "Will, you were trapped with that woman for so long, you think I'm special. But anyone, _anyone_ would treat you that way, make you feel that way. I can't imagine anyone could help it."

Despite the seriousness of our conversation, Will smiled. "I know for a fact that isn't true. And even if it was, I wouldn't care."

I could feel panic clawing at the inside of my chest, the blood rushing to my ears, and he was killing me with this. "You don't understand-" I began, only to be cut off.

"I think I do," he contradicted.

"You don't," I repeated forcefully, trying to think of something that would make reality clear to him. And the truly horrifying part, the part that in my mind validated everything I'd been telling him, was that there were so many illustrative episodes that I knew could cause him to turn away. But one stood out to me, of course, and it was perfect, the worst thing about myself, the thing even I hated. The thing I pushed away more than anything else, the ghost I ran the fastest from.

"Would you like me to tell you something real? It's a long story but the punchline really makes it worth it." I twisted my lips into something that may have passed for a smile, something cold and hard and cruel to match the secret I was about to reveal.

"Honor," he said, voice soft. "You don't have to tell me anything."

"I do. I have to tell you this, because you… Have no idea what you're talking about, Will." I laughed bitterly because it was so true, not that it was especially amusing, before closing my eyes, purposely bringing up my least favorite ghosts, my worst memories, my biggest regrets, my most horrible, horrible mistakes. Purposely reliving them.

"Ten years ago I ran away from home_._" It seemed like such a pale description of what had happened, accurate enough, but it didn't reveal any of the emotions that surrounded the act: the fear, the anger. But maybe that was best, maybe I didn't want him to see them.

"I had a huge fight with my mother, and I stormed out, and she told me that if I walked out the door, I could never come back. She said I'd be dead to her until I came crawling on my hands and knees begging for her forgiveness." That's an exact quote, by the way; it's not like I'd ever be able to forget something like that, no matter how hard I tried. "But I left anyway."

Will looked at me sympathetically. "Honor, that's not-"

I held up a hand to silence him, slightly amused that he'd think _that_ was my big confession. If only. "I'm not done. I ran away, I made a new life for myself, an amazing life… But the beginning was hard. I missed her. I wanted so badly to hear her voice that I'd call just so she would answer the phone." I've never forgotten the way she always said _Hello? Hello? Is anyone…? Hello?_ because to me those words were comforting and I'd smile and then gently place the receiver back in its cradle and cry. I cried a lot back then.

"She must have known it was me because one day I called and the number was disconnected." Drawing a deep breath, I remembered that night, could perfectly recall the despair I felt standing at a payphone in the midst of one of Los Angeles's rare storms- whoever first said _it never rains but it pours _was undoubtedly referring to LA- and hearing the pre-recorded message: _This number has been disconnected or is no longer in service._

"It was worse than the night I left, I think," I continued, feeling the ache deep in my chest that never fully disappeared, no matter how much I ignored it, no matter how much I thought about anything other than. "Because she'd planned it, she'd known what would happen, she'd known someday I'd call and discover I was cut off from everything, in every way, that she didn't care about me at all."

Will moved closer to me, wrapped one arm around my shoulders, not saying anything, just comforting. And strangely, despite my panic and all the other dark emotions just thinking about what I was telling him caused, I was comforted. I burrowed close, inhaled deeply, enjoyed it while I could, because I knew soon enough he would not be able to stand to touch me.

"Several years later, she was dying. She tried to call me, sent me letters, apologized over and over, cried on my answering machine, begged for forgiveness. _Begged_ to see me just one more time, to speak to me." I closed my eyes, hearing her voice in my head, the desperation of her cries. If she'd ever said _Hello? Hello?_ I think I might have been swayed, but she never did. It was always my name, always broken pleas, and those words had no effect on me, no power. Will tightened his embrace, and I could feel his body tensing as though he knew was I was about to say.

"I wouldn't speak to her. I sent her letters back unopened, erased her messages, ignored her calls. I disconnected my phone number," I whispered this, because it was the thing that had given me the greatest sense of triumph at the time and was now the thing of which I was most ashamed. "And after 18 months, she died. And I felt nothing at all."

He looked at me for a moment, his expression very shocked and very serious, and I looked at him with my hard, bitter smile. And then, turning my head, I buried my face in his chest and did something I hadn't done in years: I cried. Not deep, soul-wrenching sobs, nothing dramatic at all, just a few tears running silently down my cheek, but they felt just like a Los Angeles storm, like a downpour out of a clear blue sky that lasts for days and leaves everything flooded. Destroys roads, destroys bridges. Those tears were for my mother, for the forgiveness neither of us would ever gain or give, but also for what I had just thrown away, what I had just given up. Because no one, no one could hear that story, could realize just what kind of person I was, and still want me.

But Will… He placed his hand under my chin, tilted my face up, brushed the tears away.

"Obviously that isn't true," he murmured, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together as though the liquid wetting them was evidence. "And it doesn't change anything."

I looked at him in utter bewilderment. Apparently, he hadn't been listening. "I don't think you understand-"

"I don't think _you_ understand," he interrupted forcefully. "That isn't who you are; that's something you did. Something bad, something horrible. But you're paying for it now. I just wish you wouldn't let it make you hate yourself, because you are so… Everything you said about me, Honor. You are. Just… You're _good_, at least as good as I am."

And I think those were the words I had always wanted to hear. Because while everything that had happened in the end had been recent, it had all gone exactly according to the plan I'd been making for years. Until the second I'd heard she was gone I'd thought it was what I wanted and I'd known that wanting it was a dark, sick, twisted thing to be ashamed of. I felt the warmth of his embrace seep into me, spread throughout me, and there was that soaring thing in my chest again as I suddenly thought… _This could be okay_. If he could still care about me, still want me, after hearing that, then surely everything else, even Norah Castle, even the 2,200 miles of land between us, was surmountable.

I wanted to make the rest of my confessions right that very second, get everything out of the way, but he was kissing me, and touching me, and everything was so intense. He was trying to use his body to prove his words, to prove them over and over, and I let him because I wanted to believe it. I wanted so badly to believe that everything he'd said about me was true, and what he was doing to me made everything he'd said real. And afterwards, we were both exhausted, too physically and emotionally drained for any more confessions. So I fell asleep in his arms, believing, really believing, that everything would be alright.

Have I mentioned before that I'm an idiot?

**TBC**

_I don't usually beg for reviews, but I worked super hard on this chapter, and so did **traceit**, so if you have any feedback at all, I know I would really appreciate it._


	18. Epic Proportions

_For _blaue-banane_, _mattyfresh_, _DutchLuv_ and the inimitable _Greys has become my life_. Your words continue to inspire, and I hope to be worthy of all praise. _

_This chapter would totally suck without _**traceit**_. If it sucks anyway, it's not her fault._

**18**

Seriously, I am not a morning person, and for once my body agreed with me; the sun must have been up for hours before I was awoken by my cell phone ringing with an especially shrill, piercing tone. I opened my eyes, stared blearily at the clock next to the bed, turned over to look at Will. I'd always loved the way he slept, from the first time I'd watched him like this, loved the openness in his face, the softness, the innocence of his expression, and it was so new, so strange to feel these things and not fight them, but I was going to be different now, I knew I was, better. Smiling, I reached out to stroke his hair, then froze. I realized that I'd turned my phone off yesterday, and that particular ring was the emergency ring only ever used in the direst of circumstances. It was, in fact, the same ring that had preceded the news of my mother's death.

This jolted me out of my sickening (seriously, I'm really sorry about that) haze of infatuation, and I rolled out of bed, very undignified, tangled in the sheets. Will slept on, oblivious, which was a good thing. Kneeling down, practically crawling on my hands and knees, I searched through the various items of clothing for the jeans he had stripped off me last night. I found them under the bed for some reason and retrieved my phone from the pocket, answering it quickly.

"Hold on," I whispered. "Just one second."

I grabbed the first thing to hand, which happened to be Will's cardigan from the night before. It was as oversized on me as his shirt had been, as modest once buttoned, and far softer and warmer since it was made of cashmere. None of this really registered, however, as I pulled it on with no consideration for the delicacy of the fabric and left the room as stealthily as possible, using my clever little doorknob trick. Then I tiptoed down the hall, ignoring the cold wooden floorboards beneath my feet, my heart pounding in fear because in all the years I'd had that emergency ring, it had only ever been used three times before and answering each of those calls had revealed horrible, horrible news.

"Okay. Talk," I said, voice urgent, once I reached the living room and it was safe to speak at full volume.

"Jesus, Norah, just let the phone ring why don't you?" Odessa Goldsmid, my publicist/assistant/friend exclaimed, her familiar voice, husky with the cigarettes she was constantly chain-smoking, sounding strangely foreign after over a week without it shouting something at me.

I did some quick math in my head (never easy, but especially difficult at 8 a.m.), and came to a startling conclusion. "Dess, it's 5 a.m. in Los Angeles! Why are you awake? What's wrong? What's the emergency?"

"Believe me, I know what time it is," Odessa drawled. "I'd still be asleep if not for my damn dog, always with the barking, christ! But in the end it's a good thing… Are you anywhere near your laptop?" Laptop. That meant some kind of bad press, and that… Was something I could live with. It was fine. It would be fine…

"Yes, just a sec." I snagged my computer from the coffee table and opened it while sitting crosslegged on the couch. Unlike me, it woke up almost immediately. "Okay, I'm on. What's happening?"

"Go to the _Keeping Tabs_ website," Odessa directed.

I felt my stomach drop and my heart stop, reminding me of my confrontation with Kurt the previous night. _Keeping Tabs_, in case you're unaware (lucky lucky you) is the slimiest of all possible slimy tabloids. It's below _People_,_ Us Weekly_, _In Touch_… It's maybe slightly more reputable than the _National Enquirer_, but really it depends on the day. Bad press was one thing, but if there was something about me on the _KT_ website, I knew it would be bad on an apocalyptic scale.

And oh god, if only. _Apocalyptic_ would have been a blessing. This was so much worse, and it was right at the top of the website with a huge flashing banner headline (and by the way, did I call it or what?). My heart, which was now beating in fluttery, uneven bursts, sank further and further with every word I read.

x x x

**Norah Castle's "Private Pain"?**

_Summerview_ chanteuse **Norah Castle** is famously incommunicative about her personal life, so much so that she has never been conclusively linked to anyone (though rumors have persisted about encounters with actor **Michel Delaine**, indie frontman **Elliott Edrington** and basketball phenom **Chris Cassetti**). Many celebrities have praised her for her success in this, as well as her integrity and honesty.

_KT_ can exclusively report that Norah has everyone fooled.

The pictures below, special to _KT_, clearly show Norah Castle in a steamy encounter last Wednesday with married high-school teacher William Schuester in his office at William McKinley High School in Lima, OH. We're impressed!

Castle's rep confirms that she is currently in Lima, but will not comment on the photos, saying only "Ms. Castle experienced a personal tragedy recently, and hopes everyone will have the decency to allow her to mourn in private." Doesn't look like she's bothering to do anything in private…

See more pictures and read our exclusive coverage, including interviews with people close to the scandal, in the latest issue of _KT_, available today! And remember… As the situation unfolds, we're _Keeping Tabs_ on it!

x x x

There were three pictures, each of me sitting on Will's desk, facing the camera, my face clearly visible with my legs wrapped around him. It was obviously me, and it was obvious what I was doing: the ecstatic look on my face really said it all. The only small mercy was the fact that Will was unidentifiable, but considering the fact that he was identified in the text I didn't think that would make much of a difference.

"Oh _god_," I choked out. "Oh god. Oh god, Odessa, how the fuck did this happen?"

Dess laughed, genuinely amused. "I could ask you the same question; I thought you were at a funeral."

"I was," I muttered.

"Some funeral," she quipped, and I wished she was with me in person so I could wrap my fingers around her neck and just squeeze.

"Dess, what are we going to do?" I asked, voice breaking, utterly distraught. My reputation mattered to me, kind of, but not as much as whatever it was I'd barely started with Will. Breaking this news to Will on top of everything else I had to tell him… It was a nightmare.

"Hell if I know," she sighed. "I'm already on my way to the office. Blake and Desmond are meeting me there, we're going to strategize. But you need to get a copy of the issue, babe, because the actual article is far worse."

"How is that even possible?" I demanded.

"I can't even tell you. Seriously, you just have to read it," Odessa answered, and my mind reeled. "But we need to talk. I need to know how much of this is true so we can do damage control."

"Okay," I answered, knowing the drill from previous comparatively minor tabloid emergencies, feeling slightly calmed by the familiar routine. "Go."

"Pictures?"

"Real."

"Depiction?"

"Accurate."

"Identification?"

"Accurate."

"Teacher?"

"Yes."

"_In his office_, fortheloveofgod?"

"Yes."

"Married?"

"Technically."

"Jesus," she breathed, ending her interrogation. "What were you thinking?"

"Now isn't exactly the best time to get into it," I snapped.

I heard her take a long breath and realized she was smoking, inhaling so deeply I could almost feel the smoke in my own lungs. And honestly? I'd quit smoking five years ago but at that moment I would have killed for a cigarette, would have kissed her full on the lips just to suck the smoke out of her mouth and into mine, and I don't care how desperate that sounds. Some situations just call for nicotine, and this was one of them.

"Fine," Dess agreed, amenable for once, maybe due to the note of panic in my voice. "Tell me later. I'm going to get that Cohen kid, the mean one, to send a Cease and Desist order to _KT_. But it's not going to help much, might get the pics off the website… His name removed, maybe, since he's a private citizen. But the print version is already on the stands."

"Please, Odessa," I begged. "Whatever you have to do."

"Don't worry, Norah," she soothed, which only made me worry more; Odessa did not do _soothing_ very effectively. "We'll take care of it."

I suddenly realized that when she said they'd take care of it, she really meant they'd take care of it _for me_, fix it _for me_, make it right _for me_. And why wouldn't they mean that? They were my team, making things right for me was their job. But I didn't care about containing the scandal for myself, and I needed her to understand that.

"Dess, listen. This is very, very important. Whatever plans you're making, forget about me. Throw me to the dogs, I don't care. But don't let this ruin Will's life."

There was a long pause, and somehow even the silence was incredulous. "Are you kidding me?"

"Not even a little," I swore. "Whatever you have to do. This will get him in trouble with the school… When that Cohen kid is done terrorizing the bastards at _KT_, send him here. I can't… He… This is just a nightmare."

"Yeah, especially since I was going to spin it as 'dirty married teacher seduces innocent ingénue'. You have the rep to pull it off," she pointed out.

My tone was utterly final as I said "No way in hell. Never. Reverse it. Tell everyone I'm a nymphomaniac and I raped an innocent man, I don't care. Hang me out to dry. I'm serious."

"Why?" Dess demanded. "What the hell kind of pr rep would I be if I did that to you? My job is to save your career, save your image, not destroy it."

"No," I snapped. "Your job is to handle my career and image as _I_ direct. My career, my image, my directions. The only kind of pr rep you'll be is an unemployed one if you ignore me on this, Dess." And I felt horrible for threatening her, but I also knew I truly meant it. I had never felt so frantic, never given her such important instructions; it had never been so important that she follow them.

"What is going on with you, Norah?" she asked, her tone that of the girl I met my first week in LA, the girl with whom I'd split the rent for a couch in someone's living room until we could afford to share a studio, the girl who was my friend, not the fearsome pr agent that girl had become.

"I can't… Really, I can't explain it right now," I whispered. "But I'm serious, Odessa. Please. Keep him out of it."

"Based on the pictures he's pretty clearly _in_ it." Dess muttered, defaulting to coarse humor to restore our equilibrium. "Okay. I'm here, better go… Hopefully Blake and Des have something, because if I can't besmirch this bastard's reputation I got nothin'."

"Keep me informed," I ordered or perhaps begged. "Text me every second or I'll be calling you at least that often."

"Yeah yeah, I know… You want to be _Keeping Tabs_ on it. Ha ha. But seriously, get a print copy. It's worse."

And then she hung up.

I buried my head in my hands, hearing a ringing in my ears, my heart pounding painfully in my chest and what the fuck was I going to do? What the fuck _could_ I do? Even by celebrity standards, this was a scandal of epic proportions. It was bad enough, what I had been hiding from him, but this… More than anything, I wanted to run to him, take comfort in his arms again (which was quite a novel sensation, by the way; I'd never felt the need to do such a thing in a time of crisis before), but first I had to figure out how to explain why I needed it. How to come clean, how to break this news to him. It's not that I didn't believe everything he'd told me the night before, but that… Had been about me. This was about him, and I knew that made it different, more difficult to forgive.

More than anything, I feared that this time I'd make my confession to him and he'd be unable to overlook it, unable to say what I most wanted to hear, unable to bear my company any longer. This literally had the potential to destroy his life, ruin his career, and surely that could make even someone as kind as Will hate me forever. Just twelve hours ago I could have lived with it (very unhappily, but still) but now… It hadn't even happened yet and the very thought that it might caused me physical pain.

As I was sitting there on the couch hyperventilating and being useless, there was a knock at the door. My instinctive reaction was to run and hide, assuming reporters had found me, but then I remembered that members of the paparazzi never knock; they wait for you to leave the safety of your home, all unaware, and then ambush you. I crept to the door and looked out the peephole, and a feeling of relief rushed through me, helping me get a reign on my panic.

I threw open the door. "Emma, thank god!"

**TBC**

_Sorry for the cliffhanger, but really I'm too nice to you guys with the constant updates and all. I need to abuse my readers more._


	19. Cashmere

_For _Sierra-Jae, DutchLuv, Dementedx, Valentinas, Greys has become my life, MelissTib_ and _DoRaM_. It's very exciting to have so many reviews on one chapter! Also for _**traceit**_, for inspiring me to make this chapter better._

I was very moved by everyone's pleas for mercy :) This is your reward, such as it is...

**19**

If you had asked me to name the one person aside from Will that I'd most want to see at this moment, I would have chosen Emma, and it was as though my subconscious desires had brought her to me. She was standing on my doorstep in a neat little sweater set, tidy as usual, holding a copy of _KT_ with my face on the cover and a small inset picture that I recognized from the website. The banner proclaimed **Norah Castle Exposed!** and I squeezed my eyes shut to block out the image for a second. When I opened them, it was still there, so I tore my eyes away and focused on my friend. She looked… Shocked, which made perfect sense considering how shocked I felt.

"I have never been so glad to see anyone in my entire life," I murmured, pulling her into a tight hug despite knowing she didn't like to be touched. "Thank you. Thank you for being here. I've been… I don't know what to do."

She held herself stiffly in my arms and didn't return my embrace. I didn't blame her; between her OCD and the fact that I must have looked like twelve kinds of hell (and I felt that way too), I wasn't entirely certain how she could bear to be anywhere in my vicinity. Also, perhaps more to the point, I was only wearing an oversized cardigan, haphazardly buttoned.

"Honor-" she began, and I pulled away.

"I'm sorry," I said, giving her a small but genuine smile, and it was a relief to know that I could still make that expression. "I know you hate it when anyone invades your personal space. But I just… God I'm glad you're here. Come in, please, come in… I haven't vacuumed the couch recently myself but I'm sure the cleaning crew I hired did…"

"Honor, that's not-" she attempted once more, but I held up my hand to stop her.

"Before we discuss anything, may I read the article? My publicist told me the print version was worse; I've only read what was on the website. And it was bad enough, I almost had a heart attack, and my whole team is meeting but no one knows what to do…" I was rambling, my words running together, and she just looked at me with that shocked expression in her wide eyes and handed the magazine to me without a word.

I shut up, skimmed the article, and realized that Odessa's analysis was correct: the print version _was_ worse, and not just because the pictures were practically 8x10 glossies, each on its own page. It wasn't much worse for me, though Elliott Edrington (bastard) had felt the need to shoot his mouth off, and there were some painful mentions of my mother that would have haunted me just a few days ago. They had less impact on me now, all of it did. But for Will… Some of the ugly insinuations the article made could have a huge impact on his life, and it made me so angry and helpless. I closed my eyes, feeling a disturbing desire to cry again, but twice in one 24 hour period was unheard of for me so I fought it off.

"God, Em," I whispered, brokenly, as I handed the magazine back to her. "What am I going to do?"

"Is it true?" she asked quietly.

I looked at her. "What, the article? Barely one word in ten. They spelled my name right, that's about the best I can say about it."

"But the basic details?" she pressed. "The pictures? The… The man you're with, he's… Correctly identified?"

Nodding, I looked at her, panicked. "Yes. And Jesus, Em, he could lose his job over this, I mean, you work in a high school, I'm sure I don't have to tell you how very bad this… Em? Em?" Emma had grown even paler than usual, her eyes growing even wider, and her mouth was forming a silent, trembling "o". "Em? Are you alright?"

"No," she whispered. "No, I'm not. I have to… I have to go, Honor."

She stood, then paused, realizing she still had the magazine in her hand. After a moment's hesitation she handed it to me, and I took it automatically. "You can… You can keep this, I can't… I don't need it."

"Emma, what's wrong?" I asked, and now I was really concerned. It was almost a relief to feel something other than panic, because it took me out of myself. "Sit down, I'll get you something to drink… Please stay. I need your help, you have no idea. He… He doesn't know who I am, and he's upstairs, and I think… Em, christ, I think I love him. Or I could love him, and-"

She was shaking her head vigorously back and forth. "Upstairs? Now?"

I nodded. "Yes, we went bowling last night… It's a long story, but he's still sleeping and-"

"Oh god," she breathed, closing her eyes tightly. "I have to go. I have to now, I'm sorry. I just…" she opened her eyes, touched my shoulder very carefully, stared at her hand on the soft cashmere for a strange second during which I got the impression she was horrified by the feel of it. "I just want you to know that I know this isn't your fault. But I can't look at you right now."

Her words shocked me; I couldn't believe she'd judge me so harshly for something like this. She'd always been very chaste, of course, but more because she couldn't stand the thought of anyone's hands on her than anything else. I'd never have expected her to be so puritanical about the whole thing. "Is it really so bad, Em?"

She nodded. "Yes. Yes, it is. It's worse. I have to go."

I stood perplexed, hurt, as she made her way quickly to the door. Before she reached it, there was the sound of the door slamming upstairs.

"Honor!" Will called, and he sounded… Pretty much as enraged as I'd expect if he'd found out about this somehow from someone other than me.

I covered my face with my hands. "Oh god."

Emma, strangely, did the same. "Oh god," she whimpered, and I suddenly thought that perhaps her reaction had nothing to do with me at all.

Will came down the stairs two at a time, tousled, shirtless, glorious, anger practically radiating off of him in visible waves. "Honor, what the _fuck_-" he began, breaking off when he spotted Emma standing frozen with her hand on the doorknob. "Emma?" he asked, confused.

Emma's eyes were even wider than before, her skin even whiter, and surely that pallor, that unnaturally still expression, wasn't healthy. She was so stiff I thought she might break, and seeing the way she looked at Will, seeing the way Will recognized her, I put two and two together and arrived at a devastating four. The realization crashed down on me, and it hurt, physically hurt the way the thought of losing him had earlier when I'd contemplated it on the couch, but far far worse because this time it was happening. It was all my nightmares, every fear I'd ever had about opening myself up to someone, all of them coming true at once.

"Will," she whispered.

"Emma, what are you doing here?" he asked, and there was a gentle tone in his voice, the same one he'd used with me last night, and god damn him straight to hell.

I looked back and forth between the two of them, then turned to Emma, taking her gently by the shoulders. She flinched, of course, not that I blamed her. "Em, I had no idea. Please, you have to believe me, I would never… You've been so… I would never do this to you." Well, except apparently I had, even if only accidentally.

"I know," she said, tried to smile, couldn't. "I'm sorry."

There were tears rolling down my face again, because like everything else I hadn't been strong enough to fight them, and I dashed them away angrily. "Not as sorry as I am."

She nodded once, sent Will a pain-stricken glance, and left.

He looked at me, clearly still confused, then shook his head as though physically forcing the confusion from his mind. "What the fuck is this, Honor?" he demanded, and all his rage was back. It was almost frightening, the way he came at me, the way he ripped the magazine from my hands. "I just got a call from Kurt, rambling about some website and you being Norah Castle and pictures and-" He looked at the cover of the magazine, really saw it, and blanched.

Suddenly, I was completely furious with him. For being some kind of goddamn key, for opening me up and leaving me open, leaving me vulnerable to something as horrible, as painful as this. _This_ was why I'd wanted so badly to keep him out, to keep all of those doors closed. I felt utterly betrayed, and not just because he was involved with someone else the entire time I was fighting so hard not to love him. The fact that he'd used me was bad enough, but the fact that he'd turned me into the Other Woman made me feel sick and dirty. Believe it or not, I do have standards, and I'd never do that to anyone, much less a friend. But mixed in with the genuine anger I felt on Emma's behalf was a dark and shameful wash of jealousy. Yes, she was my friend, but she had something I wanted _so badly_ and I coveted her possession of him, couldn't stop myself from hating her for it. It was this more than anything else that incensed me, the fact that he could hijack my emotions and turn them against someone I cared about.

"You're the man Emma has been in love with forever?" I choked out.

He looked at me like I was insane. "How do you even know her? And not that it's any of your business, but yes, she's had feelings for me for awhile. And that is not the point. Emma has nothing to do with the fact that I'm apparently fucking Norah Castle on the cover of a magazine."

I laughed bitterly. "Yeah, sorry about that. And actually the article is worse. But let's talk about Emma. You gave her reason to believe you returned her feelings?" I remembered something she'd confided in me earlier. "You kissed her?" The very thought of his lips touching hers filled me with envy I knew I had no right to, but I couldn't fight it, had to feel it, had to hate her for it and hate him too and last but not least hate myself. _Had_ to.

He stepped closer to me, intimidating me with his size and power. "Don't you _dare_ try to make this about me. You lied to me, every second we were together you were lying to me-"

"Withholding information is not the same thing as lying," I said.

"Isn't it?" he demanded, brandishing the magazine. "Sometimes it's worse. What you withheld led to this… My life, my job, all ruined. How could you do this?"

"How could you?" I retorted, unable to fathom the fact that he was trying to bring the focus back to what now seemed like a relatively minor matter. The fact that I had lied to him (by omission, which hardly counts), the fact that I had unwittingly involved him in a major scandal, all lacked the impact of what he'd done to me. Some sick part of me was pleased that I'd destroyed his life because he had destroyed mine. And again I hated that he could make me feel so many disgusting, inhuman emotions when I was barely used to feeling the normal ones.

"I can understand fucking me once, take your mind off things, Emma never finds out, it's fine," I said, voice sarcastic. "Maybe even twice. I sincerely doubt she'd have let you do any of the things I let you do to me to her. So fine. But why the whole charade? Seeing me, being with me… Why bother, when you had Emma?"

Gripping my shoulders, he looked me directly in the eye. "Forget. About. Emma. Tell me the truth, Honor. Norah. Tell me all of it."

I broke away from him. "You know it," I answered dully, my voice almost mechanical. "I'm Norah Castle. I came here to bury my mother. I saw you in the bar the night of the funeral… You were singing my song like you understood it. I brought you home and now we're here."

"And you were going to tell me this _when_?" he demanded, but I could see that his rage was ebbing, to be replaced by something… Confused. Desperate. All the emotions he'd engendered in me for the past week.

Looking as deeply into his eyes as he was looking into mine, I felt the need to lash out like a wounded animal. I wanted, _needed_ to hurt him at least as much as he'd hurt me, if such a thing was even possible. "Never," I spat, lying through my teeth, shrugging his hands off my shoulders, watching the pain develop in his expression as that single word hit home. And for that second, it felt good. It was satisfying, and the sense of triumph submerged all the self-loathing my behavior clearly called for. "I'm going back to Los Angeles tomorrow."

"And last night was…?" he asked, and his voice was still hard but his eyes were vulnerable, which was his mistake. I went in for the kill.

"Fun, mostly. I've been trying to break into the acting business, needed some practice." I shrugged again. "I think I gave a fairly realistic performance, personally."

"I don't believe you," he said, shaking his head, but I could see in his eyes it was very difficult not to.

"I guess I'm better than I thought." My gaze narrowed on his, and I smiled. "Did you believe I could want you, care for you? Just give me the Academy Award right now. Why would I? There's nothing, Will, nothing that makes you so special." Obviously, this speech was just the exact opposite of everything that was true, but I knew that with his history every word would find its mark, and I used that.

He physically recoiled as though I'd slapped him, and his expression went through a series of changes so rapid I'm not certain I was ever able to identify all of them: shock, rage, disbelief, longing, anger, confusion, pain. But in the end he wasn't violent, just very pale and very serious.

"I could forgive you for this, you know," he said quietly. "For all of this, if you wanted me to."

For a brief second, all my dark emotions receded, and I felt a nearly undeniable urge to go to him, tell him I wanted that more than anything, ask him to hold me, apologize and beg and I don't know what else. It reminded me of the night before, him freely offering me something invaluable, something I wanted desperately, but this time… This time I knew the catch. Knowing what it felt like to trust him, open myself to him, and have that trust obliterated, made it impossible for me to accept what he wanted to give me because I'm not strong, okay? Not strong enough for that. I just couldn't… Even if he could forgive me for what I'd done, I didn't have it in me to do the same for him. And that was the difference between us.

"I don't," I responded shortly, rolling my eyes. "All of this was becoming very boring. Go crawling back to Emma, hope that she'll forgive _you_. I sure as hell wouldn't."

"Honor," he murmured softly. "Don't do this."

I looked at him and laughed, took the magazine from his hands and held the cover up next to my face. "That's not my name. I'm Norah Castle, maybe you've heard of me?" Then I threw the filthy tabloid rag at his feet. "I'm going to take a shower… I'd like you off the premises by the time I get out, if you please."

"And what about this?" he asked, nudging the magazine with his foot, but the deep sadness in his voice seemed to be for something else, though I couldn't imagine what. "What am I supposed to do about this?"

I turned away, made my voice casual, almost bored. "Honestly, Will? I have no idea. Nor do I care,"

Then I sauntered up the stairs, removing his cardigan on the way, leaving it for him on the landing. I didn't hear him leave. I was too busy standing in the shower, letting the water course down my upturned face so that I could pretend I wasn't crying.

**TBC**

_Sorry it didn't go down quite the way you wanted, Greys, but hopefully you enjoyed it anyway :)_


	20. Bad News

_For _mattyfresh_, _Greys has become my life_, _someWhereinRoma_ (x2, because I skipped her last time somehow), _blaue-banane_ and _DoRaM_. Thank you so much for your continued support! I love that you're as invested in this as I am! And most especially for _**traceit**_, without whom I would have made a _huge_ mistake in this chapter._

Alas, my friends, now shall ye reap what ye have sown! I had planned to post 19 and 20 together because 20 is so short, but you got 19 early so..._  
_

**20**

_Keeping Tabs… The Tabloid _Keeping Tabs_ On The Stars!_  
12.01.09

**Norah Castle Exposed!**

Multi-platinum recording artist **Norah Castle** has often been praised for her poise in the spotlight and her absolute insistence on personal privacy. As a very successful woman in the arts, she is looked up to by young girls and seen as a role model, and of course she cultivates this persona. So it's only natural that the world was shocked by _KT_'s exclusive steamy pictures of Castle _en flagrante_ with married Ohio high school teacher William Schuester in his office on campus. Interviews with sources close to both Castle and Schuester reveal the true extent of Norah's deceit. _KT_ is keeping tabs on it!

**Who Is William Schuester?**

According to one anonymous source, identified only as a colleague of Schuester's, the handsome Spanish teacher and glee club director is not only married, but his wife of five years was actually expecting their first child. "Apparently the stress of this horrible discovery has caused her to miscarry. It's a real tragedy."

Reports on Schuester are conflicted, with the source stating "There have been rumors about him and a co-worker here for over a year. Her engagement to another teacher ended abruptly a few weeks ago and everyone knows he was the cause. There have also been some whispers about his inappropriate closeness with his female students. Ms. Castle is just one in a long line of women to fall for his smarmy, greasy-haired charm."

However, according to sophomore Rachel Berry, 16, who is a member of the glee club and one of Schuester's protégés, everyone has the story all wrong. "Mr. Schue is an inspirational teacher, and his support is the main reason we were able to defeat our competition to win Sectionals. Well, and my years of extensive training of course."

The anonymous source is not convinced. "Of course she'd say that, she's in love with the home permed lothario." According to several reports, Berry and Schuester sang the ballad _Endless Love_ together "very convincingly" in October.

"I'm just saying that she was seen leaving Mr. Schuester's home late at night on at least one occasion, and she gets every solo. So maybe she's not such a victim, either," the source reveals. Officials at William McKinley High will no doubt wish to investigate such claims.

**Norah Castle's Callous Ways!**

**Edrington** frontman **Elliott Edrington**, who rumor once romantically linked with Norah Castle, is inclined to give the teacher the benefit of the doubt. "I'm certain Norah pulled her usual tricks and seduced him, ruining his marriage and possibly ending his wife's pregnancy. She has no empathy and no respect for anyone's feelings."

Several reports seem to confirm Edrington's accusations, including one from Lima, OH native Beatrice Shaw, a close friend of Castle's recently-deceased mother. "That girl simply broke Prudence's heart! She left one night when she was only 16, without a word to anyone, and everyone was frantically searching for her for months. Finally a little friend of hers received an insulting postcard from her, so at least we knew she was safe."

Mrs. Shaw added "Prudence never saw or spoke to her daughter again, even though it was her dying wish."

Funeral director Mortimer Huckston, also of Lima, OH, sheds some additional light on the subject. "I was the one arranging her mother's funeral, so I called her to discuss the details. After I explained several different options, she simply shouted 'Just put the body in a box and put the box in the ground, how hard can it be?' and hung up on me."

Other sources at the Garden City Christian Union Church, where Ms. Castle's mother was buried, claim she didn't even attend the funeral. "She wasn't here," one church member stated flatly. "Believe me, I'd have noticed Norah Castle!"

Castle's rep had no additional comments, saying only "Ms. Castle does not discuss her private life with the press."

Just know that we're on to you Norah, and so are your disappointed former fans!

**TBC**


	21. Insistence

_For _christierrr, Greys has become my life, Valentinas_ and _blaue-banane_. You guys keep me motivated, even when I can't write anything worth reading to save my life. I just think of you and somehow it works out :) Also and always for _**traceit**_, of course. Her advice and inspiration has been so invaluable._

**21**

The Bakersfield airport was miniscule, and so were its bathrooms, but Odessa and I managed to take over the only ones in the building, commandeering the vanity area so that she could do my hair, my makeup. I'd gotten out of Lima before the paparazzi even had the chance to arrive, and had detoured to this podunk town specifically for the purpose of transforming back into Norah Castle. Back into myself. And I wanted it, needed it, because Honor Castlereagh had a broken heart but Norah Castle surely didn't have one at all. I wouldn't hurt anymore, once I was her again. Or so the theory went.

Odessa ran her fingers through my hair, looking at me in the mirror as she did so. She was obviously concerned, and I didn't blame her. I was washed out, defeated, and something about my expression reminded me of those people you see on the news, the ones who've had their houses destroyed by tornadoes, floods, earthquakes. It was the blank, traumatized look of someone who'd lost everything, and it didn't look especially good on me.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked, expertly twirling a strand of hair around a hot roller.

I shook my head, dislodging the roller, and she gave me a chastising look which I ignored. "Not now, Dess." _Not ever._

"Perhaps I should rephrase." She gripped my head, forced my face forward, held it still. "Don't move. And I wasn't really asking, Norah. Talk. Now."

"Seriously. Not now." My voice, which I'd intended to be commanding, came out begging, but either way. I just wanted her to leave me alone. So far I'd done a decent job of not thinking about anything that had happened earlier, and I wanted it to stay that way.

"Look," she said, and her voice was brisk, no nonsense, no softness. "I need to know everything on many different levels, okay? As your pr agent, I need to know what I'm dealing with so I can fix it. As your assistant I need to know what I'm dealing with so I can handle you. And as your friend, I need to know what _you're_ dealing with so I can help you through it. Basically, I have three jobs to do, and I can't do any of them if you don't talk. So talk."

I could feel pressure behind my eyes, a pressure that had once been unfamiliar but which I now knew preceded tears, and I still wasn't strong enough to fight them. "I'm just… Such an idiot, Dess. I can't…"

She stopped her ministrations, grabbed a tissue, dabbed at my face, and now there was softness in her expression. "Just talk to me, Norah. I can't stand to see you like this, honestly I can't."

So I told her everything, haltingly, as she styled my hair and applied my makeup ([waterproof] mascara last, obviously), and since those two things were quite the production there was plenty of time for the whole story. I didn't leave out the details; I told her everything I'd felt, how my feelings had grown, how happy I'd been for that brief, brief time. And how enraged I'd been after, how broken I was now. But there was no way to make her understand the way my confrontation with Will played over and over in my mind, the way the horror of it never faded for me. Now, when it was too late, I could see how wrong, how sick I had been to lash out at him, to say the things I'd said. Watching myself hurt him on a continuous loop was nearly unbearable, but I couldn't turn the playback off. Didn't want to, because I deserved to feel the full impact of my words, deserved to feel the full impact of my actions. Never before had I truly understood the phrase _this hurts me more than it hurts you_. Because while I'd hurt Will, and done it in the cruelest most calculating way, seeing his pain, knowing it was my fault, I suffered for him and for myself.

"I said everything I could think of to hurt him," I confided, hearing the words again, watching myself say them. "And none of it was true, Dess, not a single word. But I… I had to say it, I couldn't stop."

Looking at me sadly, she shook her head. "I've known you a long time, Norah. You've never been very good at being happy." Which was the biggest understatement of all time.

"I wanted to be," I whispered. "I'd never felt... I can't explain. It had just never felt so attainable before. And I tried so hard not to care, not to want it, because I was afraid of something like this happening but it happened anyway."

She wrapped her arms around me, made soothing noises, stroked my hair. It reminded me of that night so long ago when she'd found me by a payphone, crying in the rain, and stood holding me for hours, both of us soaked to the skin. I was grateful, genuinely grateful. "I'm so sorry. So, so sorry. But we'll have the last word, alright? We'll throw him to the dogs on this scandal, and then… What I have planned for him will make what I did to Elliott Edrington look merciful."

Which was saying something, because what she'd done to Elliott Edrington had been a masterful work of pure, unadulterated evil. I'd barely spoken to Elliott twice before he began to insinuate to the press that we were lovers. It raised his band's profile, increased their record sales and, unfortunately for him, seriously pissed me off. So I gave Odessa her orders ("Ruin him. I don't care how."), and she executed them flawlessly by leaking information about his crippling drug addiction to the press, and he loathes me even to this day, for which I can't exactly blame him.

I imagined doing the same to Will, leaving him penniless, friendless, reputation in tatters… For a second, a split second, I was tempted. But then I thought about the fact that his entire life was collapsing around him and it was my fault. I thought about the fact that I'd abandoned him and told him I didn't care, left him to deal with the fallout of something he was neither prepared nor qualified to handle. He must be frantic, I knew, and I couldn't bear the thought of what I'd done to him, why I'd done it. Will would never have done something like that, no matter how hurt he was; he didn't have it in him. And it was certainly too little, too late, but I had told myself I'd be different, I'd be better, and I wanted to be. For him, even after everything, even though he would never know it, I wanted to be.

"No. He doesn't deserve that, Dess. He doesn't deserve any of this," I added.

Odessa looked at me incredulously. "Are you kidding me? Look at what he did to you, Norah. This bastard broke your heart! Edrington barely did anything to you at all."

I closed my eyes, shook my head. "Maybe Elliott didn't deserve what we did to him either. But Will… I can't hate him, Odessa. I want to, I thought I could, but now… I can't blame him for anything he did."

And I couldn't. Once the rage and hatred that had coursed through my veins during our confrontation had evaporated, I saw that it had been inevitable, really. Obviously it would be Emma he'd choose, Emma he'd love. There was no comparison between the two of us. I'd thought several times before how alike they were, and I'd known that I wasn't good enough for him. Of course I wasn't. The truth was, I wasn't good at being happy because I wasn't good enough to be happy, didn't deserve to be. Emma deserved it, more than deserved it, and so did he.

"Well you should," she insisted. "He rejected you, hurt you, and honestly at this point it's either you or him. If he can't be crucified in the press, you will be."

"Then that's how it has to happen," I told her. "Whatever it takes, Odessa. I don't… I don't want his life to be worse for knowing me. I want him to be happy."

"You are killing me with this shit," she muttered. "And anyway I can't imagine how we can fix this for him, he's at least as screwed as you are."

I thought about the truth of this, of the 8x10 pornographic glossies of the two of us that were currently circulating about the country… My legs around his waist, his face buried in my neck, graphic, graphic…

"No, he's not," I said, remembering something, one of the first thoughts I'd had on seeing those photos. "Dess, in all the pictures… You can't see his face. They only have an anonymous source's identification to go on."

She looked at me like I was crazy. "Yes, but… The identification is accurate, Norah."

"Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter at all." My mind raced and my heartbeat accelerated as I hit upon a plan. "Dess! Call the Cohen kid, the mean one. I want him to file a defamation suit against _KT_ on Will's behalf, and then I want him in Lima yesterday."

"What are you thinking?" she asked, and I could see she was intrigued in spite of herself.

"Look, they printed this man's name in a national magazine, accused him of child molestation practically, with nothing stronger than an anonymous source's word to back it up. There's no way that source is going to come forward. No source, no identification, and if they can't prove it was him…" I trailed off, willing her to see all the implications.

I could see the wheels in her mind turning as fast as mine were. "Okay… And even if they could fight it, they probably won't… It will be easier to settle, which comes off as a win."

Nodding, I could feel some of the heavy weight on my heart begin to lift. "Yes. Yes. And if the magazine itself admits its claims were completely false… Because I mean, we were in his office, okay, the pictures are real, but he'd never hurt one of his students, no way in hell… When the magazine admits that, the school district will have no grounds for any disciplinary action."

She pursed her lips, then looked at me. "What if, and I mean, it's a big what if, but what if they won't settle? What if they want to take it to court? That could take years…"

At this point I should probably add that I'm not an attorney or anything but I really like Law and Order. Also, issues like this with tabloids are commonplace in the entertainment industry; I'd never been involved with one, but I had a pretty good idea of how it worked. And I wasn't worried.

"So I'll file a sworn affidavit stating that the man I was with was _not_ the man they claimed," I told her. "I'll swear to it in open court on any number of bibles, Dess. They won't have any choice."

"It could work…" she murmured, then pinned me with a hard stare. "But it does nothing for you, Norah, fixes nothing for you. Well, aside from the fact that you could claim whatever guy you were with wasn't married. So you'll just be a kinky slut, not a kinky homewrecking slut."

"Well that's something, right?" I gave her a wan smile, the first I'd managed since the morning. "I think my rep can take the hit, okay? I mean… I was doing exactly what it looks like I was doing, there's really no way around it."

"With that attitude, the next month is going to be _very_ unpleasant," Odessa pointed out. "We're talking major tabloid coverage, major increase in paparazzi, jokes on Leno… I mean, unpleasant doesn't really do it justice."

She didn't need to tell me this; I could easily imagine the talk show nightmare my life was about to become. It was funny, because a week ago the thought of being a punchline on Leno would have filled me with utter horror. But after the week I'd had, it hardly seemed like any consideration at all. The next month, and possibly the rest of my life, was undoubtedly going to be unpleasant, but not because of Jay Leno. I hadn't felt this bruised, this broken, since the last time I'd left Ohio for Los Angeles. But beyond the hurt, beyond the pain, was the soul-deep knowledge that I had to fix this, had to make this right. If that meant throwing away my reputation to save his, well… This morning I'd been willing to do it, and I still was, even though he'd broken my heart in the meantime.

But he hadn't just broken my heart, I realized. He'd broken Emma's, too. I tried to see things from her perspective, imagine the pain she must be experiencing, ignore the sick jealousy I was simply not allowed to feel, and it occurred to me that it was entirely possible that she'd be too hurt to ever speak to Will again. She was fragile like that. It wasn't right that I had ruined her happiness, even accidentally, and I needed to make _everything_ right, repair everything I'd destroyed. No matter how much it killed me. I wanted her to be happy, and I wanted him to be happy even if that meant he'd be happy without me.

None of this would make _me_ happy, of course, but then again I didn't deserve to be.

xxx

To: epillsbu [at] wmhs [dot] com

From: youcanreachnorah [at] gmail [dot] com

CC:

BCC:

Subject: Don't delete this.

Dear Emma,

I am so so sorry for everything that happened today. I hate that I hurt you; you're the last person in the world I'd ever want to hurt. I didn't do it on purpose, would never have done it on purpose, but that doesn't mean my carelessness didn't cause you pain.

You said you know it wasn't my fault, but I have to tell you, honestly, that it was. I want you to know that nothing that happened was Will's idea. I saw him, I wanted him, I seduced him, and believe me Em I'm good at that kind of thing, okay? Maybe he should have resisted me but I was… Pretty insistent.

Please, don't let this ruin what the two of you have together. You told me you finally had a chance at happiness with the man you loved, and loving someone means forgiving them. Maybe that's all it means. So forgive him, and forgive me if you can.

With Love,

NC

**TBC**

_Note: One of my close friends is an attorney, and according to him Honor's plan is pretty much the way something like this would go down, give or take a few technical details._


	22. Good News

_For everyone, because I love you :) Especially _**traceit**_._

**21**

_The Lima News: Your Hometown News Source Since 1884_  
12.15.09

**William McKinley High School Teacher Cleared in Tabloid Scandal**

The Lima Apollo School Board Disciplinary Committee voted unanimously yesterday to abandon any investigation of William McKinley High School Spanish teacher William Schuester and officially clear him of all accusation of wrongdoing. The proposed investigation stemmed from a shocking tabloid article published two weeks ago which falsely accused Schuester of engaging in lewd acts on school property with hometown celebrity **Norah Castle**, as well as having inappropriate contact with female students.

According to Los Angeles attorney Levi Cohen, who represented Mr. Schuester at Ms. Castle's behest, "There was never any evidence for the false identification of my client, which has led the tabloid in question, _Keeping Tabs_, to agree to a defamation settlement. In light of these facts we were certain the board would clear my client's good name."

"When the article first appeared, of course we felt the need to investigate," board member Christine Larsson stated. "Any accusation of a teacher harming students must be taken seriously. But it was apparent very quickly that these accusations had no substance whatsoever. Our preliminary investigation showed Mr. Schuester to be nothing less than a dedicated teacher with his students' best interests at heart."

William McKinley High School Principal Raheem Figgins agreed wholeheartedly. "Mr. Schuester has always been one of our most trusted staff members, and continues to be. This is a man who has been named Teacher of the Year three years in a row, and who even took a pay cut to help fund the glee club, which he directs. There was never any doubt in my mind of his innocence."

The same is undoubtedly true for his students, especially those who participate in glee club. "Mr. Schue is awesome," Finn Hudson, football star and soloist, enthused. "He's always willing to give a kid a second chance, and he's a great role model. None of us believed a word of that article."

"I understand why the board had to consider an investigation; the safety of students is paramount. But I'm just glad it's all over," William Schuester stated after the unanimous vote. "My main focus now is to get the glee club ready for Regionals."

As for the woman who started the scandal, Norah Castle issued this statement through her representative: "I was pleased, though not surprised, to hear that any investigation has been dropped. Despite never having met William Schuester, I have the greatest respect for all educators, and was outraged that _Keeping Tabs_ would harm an innocent man just to add interest to their story."

Castle was fined $20,000 last week for committing lewd acts in a public building, but her partner in those acts has yet to be identified.

**RELATED NEWS**

**Sue Sylvester Leads Cheerios to Yet Another Victory, **B6

**Schuester Donates Tabloid Settlement to District, Funds Arts, **C15

**TBC**


	23. Willpower

_For_ Valentinas, DoRaM _and_ someWhereinRoma. _Thank you so much for your constant support! And, of course, for _**traceit**. _She keeps going above and beyond, saving every single chapter._

**23**

As you know, I tend to repress my emotions, deny them, ignore them, push them away. I'm far better at that form of self-deception than I am at outright lying to myself, so I almost believed my life was back to normal a mere eleven months after my mother's funeral. The press had made my life _very_ uncomfortable for the first three or four, of course, including a few weeks when I couldn't leave my house in a loose-fitting shirt without a picture ending up on the cover of some tabloid with a circle around my belly and a headline like **Norah Castle: Scandalous Secret Pregnancy!** Once, they declared I was "with child" when it was obvious I was merely "with sandwich", but I guess it was a slow news week. Each time that happened, I'd hope more than anything that Will wasn't paying attention; it would be too sick, too cruel if he were.

I missed him. Despite having known him for such a short time, I initially felt his absence from my life as an unvarying, intense pain. I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, and this was exactly why I'd fought so hard not to care about him, but I'd lost and I assure you I paid dearly for it. I was a complete wreck, a physical personification of every heartbroken cliché you've ever heard of, and I hurt, body and soul, day and night for what felt like years but was probably only weeks. It's just, the thing about that kind of pain is you can only feel that way for so long before you finally just turn off all your emotions in self-defense. If you can't do that, the pain will literally kill you, and if there's one thing I'm good at, it's self-defense.

So I was successful for the most part, by which I mean as long as I was busy, doing something, anything, I could function. To nearly everyone around me, it must have seemed like I'd slipped back into my old life as though nothing had happened. I'd put in appearances at Fred 62 and Dresden, Spaceland and the Echo, the Rainbow Room and the Roxy and the Troubadour and Beauty Bar… Los Angeles was teeming with places to see and be seen, and I was seen at all of them at one time or another. The paparazzi caught me smiling, laughing, drinking, dancing, everything I'd done before my ill-fated trip to Lima, further perpetuating the notion that everything with me was as it should be. Only Odessa seemed skeptical, watching me as though waiting for me to break somehow, and I avoided her as much as I could because she knew me too well to believe the façade I needed to believe in myself.

That façade slipped sometimes, unexpectedly, and though it happened with something approaching regularity, I was unprepared every time. Any night I was alone, any night I couldn't sleep, any time it was quiet enough for me to really hear myself think, I'd be inundated with a sudden wash of grief, and I was always surprised. Somehow I never expected the dams I'd erected would fail, which was ridiculous because they had failed again and again. And suddenly I'd just miss him so much I was drowning in it. His laugh, his smile, the way I felt a tiny shock every time his hands touched mine, the way he said my name, my real name, the way he held me, everything. I don't know if you've noticed, but I am… not good with emotions, don't even really understand how to feel them, how to process them, and for the most part I just prefer to ignore them and hope they'll go away, or fight them until they disappear. These ones refused to do so, but I just… Couldn't handle them, didn't know what to do with them.

So I put them to music. Every emotion I wouldn't allow myself to feel, I forced my guitar to feel for me, or turned my rage on pen and paper until I had pages and pages of the most horrifically honest lyrics I'd ever written. Once again, I could hardly eat (the press alternately approved of my slimmer figure or called me anorexic, depending on the week), could hardly sleep, could only write music and lyrics and play and sing and record, constantly. And I hated it, because everything I was writing was just… It laid me bare, everything about me, all my hopes and dreams and fears and regrets. Everything that should be secret, I was compelled to reveal, and the thought of anyone actually listening to it… Was terrifying. But I couldn't stop, which was also terrifying.

Worse than anything, however, was the fact that all of this masochistic torture I was putting myself through was technically my job. All of the label reps were literally salivating at the thought of releasing a new album so quickly, and I couldn't stop providing more and more material for them to discuss, dissect, compare and contrast. It was infuriating, being forced to listen to the way they spoke about the different songs, deciding which would make a better single as though that was all they were, potential hits, catchy rhymes to sell as ringtones or something. I wondered if they'd actually heard any of it, if they'd understood everything that had gone into each one. Unfortunately, I had very little power in the whole scenario, and could make no decisions about anything for myself. The only thing I insisted upon was that the album be called _Willpower_ (shut up), and tried to refrain from thinking about how badly I had screwed myself over.

When I couldn't avoid the thought, the obvious answer was _worse than ever before_. I knew these songs were the best work I'd ever done, better than anything even I had thought myself capable of, which meant I'd be performing them for the rest of my life, reliving that one week in Lima over and over and over as thousands of strangers danced and sang along. I would never, ever be free of him, I would never, ever be able to forget, and it would be _Summerview_ all over again. A place I just did not want to go, not again, not ever, and yet would be forced to visit repeatedly.

Or at least once, in the non-metaphorical sense.

"Look, I tried to talk them out of it," Odessa said after delivering the bad news. We were in my back yard, dangling our legs in the pool despite the fact that it was early evening and early November. A cigarette dangled from her fingers, unlit due to my strict no smoking policy. "But they're worried about how this album will sell in the Midwest."

"Why?" I demanded. "My last album sold twice as well after the whole mess in Lima." Apparently, the phrase _all publicity is good publicity_ is a cliché for a reason.

She looked at me and sighed. "I know. But your numbers in the Midwest went down and stayed that way. It's just a more conservative part of the country, and it has a long memory. The label wants this album to break records, and it can't if it doesn't sell in a major market like that."

"I still don't see how playing a charity concert and debuting all my new material in fucking Lima is going to change that. No one even lives there! What about Cleveland or Dayton?" Anywhere but Lima. _Anywhere_.

"Norah, it's done," Dess said gently. "They've decided you have to return to the scene of the crime, as it were. The charity concert will raise money for arts programs in local schools, which ties in nicely with the whole educational angle on the scandal… It will win people over."

"And if I don't want to win people over?" I asked, despite already knowing the answer.

Odessa gave me an _Oh, please_ kind of look. "Doesn't matter. It's booked for the first week of December.

"I don't want to do this," I whispered. "I don't know if I _can_ do this." For a brief moment, I allowed myself to indulge in a little self-pity, which was a constant temptation that I normally fought. I hated feeling this way, hated feeling anything, but one of the only things that helped me keep it all together, at least in public, was the knowledge that there was no chance I'd see him, or god forbid him and Emma, anywhere I went. Sometimes I felt that even the 2,200 miles separating us weren't enough. The thought of being in the same 10 mile radius filled me with a deep sense of foreboding. Because the real question was whether I was strong enough to be so close to him without doing something incredibly stupid, and I rather doubted I had that much willpower.

"You can, because you have to." She ran a hand through her hair, looked at me helplessly. "I'd fix this for you if I could. You smile for everyone, smile for the camera, but I know your heart is still broken. I can hear it in every note and every word of this album, and honestly I wish I couldn't."

I shrugged. "Couldn't help it, Dess. No matter what I tried to write… All of this wrote itself. But that's not the point."

"I know it's not." She splashed in the water a bit, cold droplets sprinkling us like rain, and I glared at her. "Do you want to know what I think?"

"No," I muttered.

She laughed. "Tough. I think this could be good for you. It _will_ help your image, and you need to go back, if only to prove to yourself that you can. Make peace with everything, your mother, Will… Everything. Because if you don't, I'm afraid you'll be like this forever."

"Like what? I'm fine." I tried to hold her gaze as I said this, tried to make her believe it, but she just gave me a skeptical look, eyebrows raised. "Maybe not now," I amended, "but I will be. I can fight this, Dess. I can win, I know it." Her look didn't change, and I sighed. She was right, probably, which irritated me to no end. "Okay, fine, I do this thing, my reputation is restored to its former glory, _Willpower_ breaks every record known to man, and I leave Lima fully self-actualized, ta da! Fine. Who's opening?"

Odessa avoided my eyes. "Not really sure yet, there are several possibilities… Lots of interested parties…"

"Don't lie to me," I commanded. "You're just not good at it."

Accepting the truth of this, she confessed. "Edrington. We owe their label a favor."

"Of course we do," I sighed.

"It will be fine." Her tone was soothing, or trying to be, but it didn't work of course. Nothing could soothe me in the face of a few days spent in Lima avoiding my mother's ghost and Elliott Edrington and Will and Emma and she knew it. She stood, slipped her shoes on, patted me on the head as though I were a child. "I have to go, dinner meeting at Katsuya. Do you have any plans for later?"

"I don't think so," I responded vaguely. "Maybe work on the liner notes, check the album art… Not that they'll let me change anything."

"Jesus, Norah," Dess chided, "don't wallow, please for the love of god. Go out, or have some friends over, anything. You'll make yourself crazy. Crazier."

"Bye, Dess," I said, emphasizing the farewell.

"Ciao!" And then she was gone, and I was alone, and unfortunately I could hear myself think again.

I missed him.

**TBC**


	24. Brilliance

_For s_omeWhereinRoma_ and _christierrr_. I know everyone is superbusy and I really appreciate that you took the time to let me know your thoughts. Also, of course, for _**traceit**_. Now that we're in the final stretch, she's really keeping me from making horrible mistakes!_

**24**

Lima was the same, exactly the same, except that there were more ghosts around more corners now, and I was the same too, except that I saw the new ones. Images of myself as a young girl, walking hand in hand with my mother, competed with images of myself and Will, barely touching in the backseat of a cab, for my undivided attention, and all of them gave me a headache. But I reminded myself repeatedly of what Odessa had said: I could do it, because I had to do it. There was no other way for me.

So I handled it as best I could. We had arrived a week before the concert date so that I could make nice with the local press, visit some schools, kiss hands and shake babies and I don't know what else, so at the very least I was kept busy. Plus, even if Lima was the same and I was the same, this visit was so completely different in every way that I could almost forget where I was if I tried hard enough. Last time I'd flown in coach, hidden my identity, skulked in my mother's house, avoided going out in public, gone bowling, fallen in love. This time everything was the exact opposite. I arrived by private jet, flaunted myself for the press, stayed the hell away from my mother's house, made many public appearances, did not go bowling, and most especially did not fall in love. Or go anywhere near the man I was in love with.

The problem was that I could, if I let myself, and I knew it. Whenever I was alone, whenever it was quiet enough for me to hear myself think, I missed him with a fierceness that seemed to intensify based on proximity alone. Knowing he was so close, I longed to go to him. Not even to speak to him, just to watch him, as though that were possible with the press dogging my every step and my days scheduled down to the minute. Which was my saving grace, of course. As much as I wanted to do something stupid, as much as I probably would have done something stupid, the schedule Odessa provided for me allowed no time for such nonsense, or honestly even much time to think about him at all. She'd probably planned it that way, and I was grateful. Of course I was.

Unfortunately for her (well, unfortunately for both of us, really, but it was Odessa's hard work that was spoiled) the label had different plans, which they only deigned to disclose three days in advance. I was in my hotel suite, such as it was, contemplating the steam rising off the pot of hot chocolate I'd had sent up after dinner when she knocked frantically. She stormed inside without waiting for me to answer. Before I could even ask what was wrong, she started in with the death threats.

"I am going to kill him," she spat, slamming the door behind her.

The thing is, she sounded like she meant it. It was… a little alarming. "Who? What? Why?"

"Whichever hellspawned label bastard is responsible for _this_," she growled, brandishing the piece of paper she clutched. "He is a dead man. Or woman, if it was Louise. Dead. I fucking swear it."

I couldn't help but roll my eyes at her theatrics as I reached for the paper. "Calm down. What is _this_, anyway, what has you so upset?"

"You're not going to like it," she warned, handing me the memo. "I literally intend to commit premeditated murder over this, will happily go to jail for 20 to life just to have the pleasure of strangling whoever did this and watching the light leave their eyes forever."

The letter was short and to the point, as though whoever had written it suspected it might have to be sent via telegraph: For grand finale (LTYSF, SV) Wm. McKinley HS glee to provide backup. Routine prepped. Rehearse Dec. 5, Dec. 6 preshow. Photo ops etc.

"You have got to be kidding me," I choked out, once I had a handle on my shock.

"I wish. Desmond faxed it over just now, but he swears they only sent it this afternoon," she ranted. "Which means they've been sitting on this for weeks."

"But… Dess, come on, what on earth could this possibly accomplish? Won't it just remind people of the whole scandal all over again?" I could not comprehend what would make anyone think this was a good idea.

"Desmond has a theory," she began. "I'm not sure if it's correct. Plausible at least. You need to rehabilitate your reputation in this area specifically. Having local kids perform, especially for an educational benefit, will play really well to the local area press. Even if the scandal is revived, your actual efforts will have a stronger effect here. As for the rest of the country… Well, having the scandal revived won't hurt your album sales _there_."

I looked at her in disbelief. "That is the stupidest goddamn thing I've ever heard."

She shrugged. "Maybe. But the label released the info today, and the press is eating it up. And not just local press, either. They love it, hometown celebrity giving hometown kids a chance…"

"I'm all for giving kids a chance or whatever," I told her. "But does it have to be these specific kids? Seriously?"

"Well aside from their connection to the whole mess last year, they won Sectionals recently or something. Whatever that means. Anyway, it's done." She looked at me sympathetically. "For what it's worth, their advisor won't be with them backstage or anything. The label doesn't want you guys photographed together, doesn't want there to be any opportunity for photoshopping or spin."

That was something, at least, but not enough. "But… He'll be there, Dess. Out there somewhere, watching, listening…" He'd know, he'd have to know all the songs were about him, and that was just horrifying. Somehow there is a huge difference between baring your soul to strangers and baring your soul to the person who inspired you to do it in the first place.

"Just don't think about it," she advised, as though that would be the easiest thing in the world. "Like I said, it's done. Worrying about it won't change anything."

Before I had the chance to tell her I had to worry whether it would change something or not, the hotel phone rang. Dess and I looked at each other uneasily, both wondering what new insanity the suits back home had come up with. I nodded at her, gestured to the phone, and she answered it as gingerly as if she was answering a cobra or something. "Yes?" Pause. "No. We're not expecting anyone." Pause. "No, I don't care. Send her away." Pause. "In that case, send her away _immediately_." Pause. "I speak for Ms. Castle, and I say send her away!"

After another moment she handed me the phone, shaking her head, clearly miffed. "They want to hear it from you."

I almost grinned, in spite of everything else that was going on. She hated when people deferred to me instead of her, though she should have been used to it at this point. "Hello?"

"Ms. Castle!" a very young-sounding voice on the other end exclaimed. Some hotel staffer, I assumed, since I didn't recognize his voice. "I'm so sorry to disturb you! But… Someone is here to see you, she says she knows you. I'd send her away like the lady said except… Well, she was my guidance counselor in high school…"

_Of course. Emma, your timing is impeccable._ For a split second, I wanted to repeat Odessa's instructions. Considering everything I was dealing with, she was on the shortlist of people I really didn't want to see right now. Or possibly ever. It's not that I didn't want her to be happy; I just didn't want to have to see the evidence of it in her smile, in her eyes, hear it in her voice. I didn't want to see her glowing with the love I'd wanted so badly for my own. If I had to see it I knew I would covet it, and it wasn't right, it wasn't fair, when she was my friend and I wasn't her rival in any way, shape or form.

"Send her up," I ordered, reluctantly, before returning the phone to its cradle.

"Is this a good idea?" Odessa asked, looking at me intently.

"Honestly? Probably not. But… She's my friend, Dess, and between the two of us she has more right to be angry with me than I do with her. If she can stand to see me, I can stand to see her." I hoped.

She shook her head at me. "When will you accept that you didn't do anything wrong?"

"It's not about what I did," I told her. "It's about what I feel. Anger, jealousy… I have no right to any of those emotions. None. If she can forgive me, I should be grateful for it."

"But-" Odessa began, voice stubborn.

I cut her off with a suggestion. "You should go. This is going to be awkward enough without you glaring daggers at her from the corner."

"Or throwing them," she muttered sullenly. "Fine. Call me as soon as she leaves; we have a homicide to plan."

Throwing open the door, she froze when faced with the woman who had her fist already raised to knock on it. Odessa stepped back to allow Emma to enter, and exited with one last significant look. And then it was just the two of us. She was like Lima, like me, exactly the same, except she seemed… Lighter. Happier. And I hated her for it before I could stop myself.

"Emma," I greeted, attempting to sound pleased, attempting to smile.

Her expression betrayed her uncertainty. "I'm sorry to just show up like this, but I had to-"

"Don't worry about it," I said, cutting her off. I was surprised to find that there was a part of me, a small one perhaps, that was genuinely pleased to see her. After everything that had happened, I'd worried she'd never speak to me again, and the fact that she hadn't answered my Email hadn't helped. The rest of me just felt… self-loathing, mostly.

"Please don't be mad at Matthew for calling… He just graduated a few months ago, I knew he wouldn't be able to say no to me," she confessed.

I couldn't help but smile slightly at this rare example of manipulation on her part. "Nicely done."

She smiled back hesitantly. "Thanks."

Feeling at a bit of a loss, I reached for a mug on the tray I'd had sent up after dinner. "Would you like some hot chocolate? It's probably more like lukewarm chocolate at this point, but…"

"Yes, please, that would be lovely," she answered, reaching out with her left hand to take the beverage from me.

A large diamond on her ring finger caught the low electric light, refracting disproportionately bright tiny rainbows before my horrified eyes. And I swear, and please forgive the melodrama, but I felt those little shards of brilliance just like needles to the heart. I sat down abruptly, uncertain my legs could still support me. I wanted her forgiveness, I wanted her happiness, I wanted her friendship, but more than that, for that one moment, I wanted everything she had so desperately I could hardly breathe. Will's trust, his respect, his love… His future. I would have given anything to be wearing that ring on my finger.

Emma, preoccupied with her hot chocolate, didn't seem to notice that she had just sucker-punched me. She sat down on the couch across from me, examining her mug minutely before apparently deciding it was clean enough to drink from. Though she was in no way flaunting her diamond, to me it flashed neon bright, and I could not take my eyes off of it.

"Congratulations," I said quietly, once I could speak through the pain in my chest, gesturing to her left hand. "On your engagement."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, smiling. "It's not an engagement ring, actually, it's a wedding ring. We were in Vegas for the weekend and just decided to be spontaneous…"

I closed my eyes tightly, trying and failing to fight off another wave of grief, worse than the first. But I just… I couldn't do this. Surely it wasn't fair of her to ask me to do this.

"That's… Great, Emma, really amazing, I'm so… Very happy for you." I forced myself to say the expected words, though I doubt I was able to put any feeling behind them. Then, thinking only of escape, I stood and began to ramble. "But if you'll excuse me, there's something I forgot to tell Odessa, so I'll just go… Take care of that, and then I'll be back, but you don't have to wait if you don't want to, not that I don't want you to, but if you have to leave I understand so… I'm going to go."

"Honor… Norah… Are you alright?" she asked with such genuine concern I could hardly bear it.

Looking at her worried expression, I decided to just tell her the truth. She was still my friend, even if she was also married to the man I still (stupidly) loved. "I'm… Honestly, Em, I _am_ happy for you, I just don't know if I can… Handle all of this. I'm sorry. Today is just not…"

"Oh god," Emma murmured, eyes widening. "Honor, no, wait, you don't understand-"

I interrupted her. "Really? Because there didn't seem to be anything ambiguous about your statement."

She had the temerity to smile, and for a moment I wanted to slap the expression off her face. "You're just missing some details, is all. My husband's name is Carl Howell. He's my dentist. Will and I never… I mean, I wanted us to but he… He's why I came to see you, actually."

I blinked at her in confusion, sinking into my chair for the second time. "What?"

"After you left," Emma began, looking at me very seriously, "I was hurt, and angry… Furious, really. But after I got your Email, and really thought about it, I forgave Will. Of course I did. But I also recognized that his life had just barely fallen apart and he needed to put it back together without either you or me in it. So I told him he needed to be alone for awhile."

She said this all so calmly, so matter-of-factly, and I'm sure if I hadn't still been trying to process everything I'd have seen the wisdom in her words. "Okay…"

"I intended to wait for him, I really did," she confessed. "But then Carl asked me out, and I said yes and… I'd never have believed it, but he's perfect for me. He takes me out of myself, he's helped my… habits… so much. We have fun together. And I didn't think twice about marrying him."

I was still in shock at this point. All this time I'd been imagining the two of them together, hating her for that and hating myself for it too, and now… I didn't have to imagine that anymore. This didn't mean there was any kind of chance for me, of course. But at least I could rid myself of all my sick jealousy. It was a huge relief to know that our friendship would not longer be tainted by my envy.

"I'm so happy for you, Emma." This time it was easy to put genuine emotion into that sentence, because it was true. And I was happy for me, too.

"Thank you," she said, beaming. "But that's not why I'm here. Look, Will… He's my friend, and you're my friend, and I want you both to be happy. I thought… I mean, you'd only known each other for such a short time, I thought after a month or two… And then I thought that once all the publicity died down, things would improve, but he's still... Still hurt, still angry, but under all of that he loves you. Not that he's said anything," she added when I looked up at her sharply. "I just know. Why else would he still be hurt, still be angry, after a full year? Any time one of your songs comes on the radio, he turns it off almost violently… He can't stand to hear your name. Either of them."

I didn't respond to her for a long time. In all my imaginings, every possible scenario I'd ever considered, I'd never ever thought he might still care for me. After what I'd said? What I'd done? Absolutely not. Of course, I'm not exactly an optimist, but I didn't think my analysis could have been so far off on this. Emma was always right, or almost always, but… She could not possibly be right about this. _Or she could be._ But no, I couldn't let myself think that, couldn't afford to believe it.

"And this is a good thing?" I asked, mind reeling.

Emma smiled at me. "Of course it is."

I looked at her with every emotion I was feeling in my eyes. "Guide me," I whispered. "Counsel me. I don't know what to do."

"Do you love him?" she inquired gently.

I nodded once, shortly.

Emma's smile widened. "Then you need to see him."

**TBC**

_Not to guilt you guys or anything, but I have a very depressing, boring job, and reviews just perk me right up..._


	25. x Armor

_For _mattyfresh, PlainJane1, Sierra Jae, blaue-banane, Greys, Dementedx, jilly74_ and _Wemmamazing_. Thank you all so much for your massive outpouring of support! I grinned straight through my closing shift, so now my coworkers think I'm insane, and it's all thanks to you. An extra thank you and an imaginary fruit basket for PlainJane1, who was kind enough to evangelize on the story's behalf and even nabbed a convert, yay. Dementedx also gets an imaginary fruit basket for giving me the word "Wonor". I was thinking "Schuestereagh" and that just doesn't have the same ring._

_Also and always for _**traceit**_. She's my hero, working tirelessly to make sure I don't post anything that sucks, for example this chapter back when it sucked. If you think anything I post sucks, it's my fault not hers._

Please skip this chapter if you're offended by, or too young to read, **graphic adult content**. The story will... Probably cease to make any sense at all, this is a kind of important chapter._  
_

**25**

Twenty minutes later, I was knocking on his door. It was reckless and foolhardy, unimaginably stupid, because the paparazzi were literally camped out in front of the hotel just _waiting_ for me to do exactly what I had done. Emma had tried to stop me, had even offered to arrange a meeting sometime before the show on some kind of neutral ground, safe from the press. She pointed out that one grainy picture of me anywhere near Will and the entire campaign to restore my reputation would all be for naught. And you know what? I could not possibly have cared less. If there was a chance, any chance, no matter how insignificant, that what she had said might be true, any chance at all, I had to see Will. Immediately. So I'd thanked her politely (and sincerely, but I was in a hurry) and sent her on her way. I'd resurrected my Honor Castlereagh/Clark Kent disguise (glasses and a hat), called room service to order a snack (misdirection), and walked right out the front door (balls/stupidity).

Armed with directions reluctantly provided by Emma, I'd made the short walk to his apartment building as quickly, and stealthily, as I could. It was bitterly cold, the wind biting stinging sharp, and I huddled against it, trying not to shake. I was beginning to regret my impulse to do this, regret not listening to Emma's advice, and not just because it was freezing; the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had no idea what to say if/when he appeared. There wasn't anything I could say, honestly, no persuasive speech I could make. The best I could do was apologize, tell him the truth, tell him I loved him and then beg. Abjectly. On my hands and knees if necessary. Just one year ago I'd have been horrified by the thought, incapable of thinking it much less doing it, but knowing what life had been like without him, pride ceased to be a consideration. Which is kind of pathetic now that I think about it, but true nonetheless.

And then the door opened, his face mildly curious for a brief moment before he realized who was standing in front of him, at which point the mild curiosity fled, and he was staring at me in shock. His expression was identical to the one I would have worn if I'd suddenly seen him at Spaceland in LA, no anger, no surprise, just the blank incomprehension of someone seeing something so unexpected they don't even know how to process it. This reaction was either a good thing or a bad thing, I had no idea which, but mine was very different. For me, it was as though the sight of him shifted something inside, took everything that was broken in me and reassembled it, but in a way that was both therapeutic and very painful. My heart rate accelerated, and I stared at him without blinking because I couldn't stand the thought of losing even that split second of time that could be better spent taking him in.

He was wearing sweats and a t-shirt, his hair tousled, and I imagined I'd interrupted him watching TV or reading in bed. There were faint shadows under his eyes, as though he hadn't been sleeping well, and the lines near his mouth might have been deeper, but to me he was just as beautiful as the first time I'd seen him. Even more beautiful because now he was so dear to me. I wanted to go to him, cross his threshold and throw myself into his arms, but I hadn't expected him to welcome me into them and it didn't look like he was going to. So I just smiled tremulously before speaking.

"Hey." (Look, I was at a loss for words, okay? What would you say in this situation? Come on.)

He blinked several times, rapidly, as though to clear his vision of whatever made it look like I was in front of him. "Honor?" he asked, incredulous. "What are you doing here?"

I shrugged, feeling uncomfortable under his scrutiny. He didn't appear upset, precisely, but he definitely didn't seem to be happy to see me… Not that I blamed him, but I had hoped just a little. "Looking for you."

"Why?" he demanded flatly.

Definitely not happy. "I just… Needed to see you. Talk to you. Apologize, if you'll let me."

He closed his eyes. "This is not a good idea."

"I know," I said, and my voice had never sounded so soft, so sad. "Believe me, I know. But I'm here anyway. Will, please-"

I'm not entirely sure what I'd planned to ask for. His time, his forgiveness? Whatever it was, all thought of it disappeared when he stepped forward, took my hand, pulled me inside, closed the door and pushed me up against it, seemingly in one smooth motion. Then he cradled my face in his hands and pressed his lips to mine, hard. It was… Probably the last thing I'd expected, and I wasn't naïve enough to think it meant everything, or anything, was settled between us. There was a desperation in the way he held me still, a desperation in the way his mouth moved, and I knew this wasn't any kind of resolution but rather the beginning of a very long, very intense argument. But it felt so good just to be near him again, so good to feel him against me, and I wrapped my arms around him because I'd thought I'd never have the chance again.

He was warm and solid, utterly real, and I could feel him breathing and hear his heart beat and I knew this wasn't a dream so it was perfect. His hands finally released my face, one sliding into my hair, tangling roughly in the waves at the base of my neck, while the other clutched at my waist, gripping me so tightly it was painful. It didn't matter, I didn't care. I knew it was entirely possible this was the last time I'd ever see him, and I wanted whatever I could get, wanted to remember every detail in case it had to last me for the rest of my life. Biting my lower lip just hard enough to make me open for him, he pressed his tongue inside, deepening the kiss, leaving me breathless. The taste of him, the feel of him, everything was sharper than I remembered, and I kissed him back with equal desperation, equal roughness.

Suddenly, the bruising pressure of his mouth on mine lifted, and he was leaning back against the wall in front of me, several feet of distance between us. He was breathing heavily as he passed his hand over his face, through his hair, staring at me with an unreadable expression. I felt bereft, disoriented, confused. But I was inside at least, would have the chance to say what I'd come to say. If I could gather my thoughts well enough for coherent speech, anyway.

"What are you doing here?" he repeated, voice low and harsh. It would have been impossible to believe he'd been kissing me so passionately just moments before, if not for his lips, darkened and swollen with the pressure he'd exerted on mine.

"I told you," I whispered. "I needed to see you." He had thrown me completely off balance, and now I was even more unsure of what to say, terrified to say it.

"Now?" he demanded. "After a year? After the three months of hell the press put me through, after everything has settled down, after everything you said? What more could you possibly have to say?"

I flinched at his mocking tone, but of course I deserved it. "Will, please," I said softly. "I thought staying away would be the best thing for you. And I thought… You and Emma, I wanted you two to be happy. I didn't want to get in the way."

He laughed bitterly. "Right, me and Emma."

Seeing the half angry, half wistful look on his face, my guilt intensified. "I didn't know you weren't together, I thought-"

"It doesn't matter," he interrupted. "I'm not proud of the way I treated Emma. But we would have been happy, I think, if I'd never met you." His voice as he said this was accusatory, and his words fit in neatly with every accusation I'd ever leveled at myself, and it hurt.

I met his gaze and hoped he could see all the emotions in my eyes, because there weren't words strong enough to express my remorse. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I can't… I can't say it enough."

"No," he agreed, and his voice sounded so terribly final. "You can't. I think you should leave, Honor. Norah. There isn't anything else to say."

He was wrong, there was so much more, not that I thought any of it would change his mind. But I was here, and so was he, and I just… I wanted him. With me, for me. I had to know I'd done everything I could to apologize, everything I could to try to make things right for us, or else I'd spend the rest of my life being driven crazy by _what if_.

I didn't move when he stepped forward to open the door to let me out, and he was close to me again, close enough that I could feel his warmth. Once more, I tried to remember every detail, his scent, his face, because this was certainly not going well and any hope I might have had was draining away. His eyes were dark and opaque, whatever he was feeling hidden so well behind them that I couldn't even guess at it.

"Will, please. Just let me…" I trailed off, frustrated, because I hadn't prepared any of this and his eyes were so unnerving, leaving me with no way to gauge his reaction. "You said you could forgive me for the scandal, for lying to you, if I wanted you to, and I… You cannot imagine how much I wanted you to. But you have to understand, I was so frightened, so upset about Emma. All I could think of was making sure you'd never get close enough to hurt me again, and that's why… I said what I said." _There's nothing, Will, nothing that makes you so special._

I looked at him again, hoping to see something, anything in his gaze, in the twist of his lips, anything, but his face was granite, smooth, expressionless. "I was wrong. I didn't know… I didn't understand what I was feeling. And this last year has been… Empty. And I realized that my life was always like that, I just hadn't noticed before, and I need you okay? I need you in it, or else I can't…" I stopped, because there wasn't anything meant to go after that word. It felt like without him, I couldn't do anything, or didn't want to.

"What are you trying to say?" he asked, and his voice was like his eyes, like his expression, hard and blank. I felt so naked, so vulnerable, and he was keeping himself hidden from me, and I hated it. What I was doing was against every instinct I'd ever had. Every defense I'd built was obliterated; I'd torn down every wall inside me, cast off all my armor, and if he hurt me this time, there would be nothing for me to hide behind. But then, none of those things had done me any good before. But then it was still terrifying.

"I love you," I said, and it was so much easier than I'd expected it to be, considering I'd never said those words to anyone. So I repeated it. "I love you, and I… I don't even care if you love me, I just want a chance. Just say there's a chance."

He took a step closer, and I tried once more to find any sign of a response. There was none; if anything, his façade had hardened. "This isn't fair of you, Honor. To do what you did, say what you said, disappear, reappear… Lie."

"Please. Please," I whispered. "I love you. I _love_ you. If nothing else I want your forgiveness. What do you want? I can't tell what you're thinking and it's killing me. In all of this, what do you want?"

One more step closer and he was pinning me against the door again, and for a second I thought I saw something in his face, something in his eyes, something soft, or at least softer. But it disappeared before I could identify it, and the mask was in place again. He reached out to brush my hair out of my eyes, tuck it behind my ear, and the gesture was so familiar I wanted to cry. Still, I didn't think his utter blankness was a good sign.

"I want to forget you," he said finally, almost tenderly, and I closed my eyes tightly because I couldn't hide the pain in them. Then his mouth was on mine, firm, demanding, and I responded because, again, I wanted whatever I could get, would have to remember everything and make it last forever. I didn't think for a single second that whatever was happening meant anything other than _goodbye_.

He kissed me deeply, as desperately as before, and I kissed him as though if I just pressed my lips to his hard enough I could change his mind. I knew nothing would. His hands moved all over my body, almost frantic, slipping under my sweater to grip my waist hard, skin to skin, hold me against him even as his body was forced against mine. My hands were the same, exploring his back and shoulders under his shirt, marking him with my nails, clutching him to me. The hardness between his legs was obvious as he ground into me, and the fact that it felt good, that I was even capable of feeling pleasure after what we'd just discussed, was almost shocking. But not quite. It's… God, it's difficult to explain, but if this was all I could have of him I wanted it.

I moved my hands down past his waist, taking his sweatpants with me. They pooled around his feet, and he kicked them away while simultaneously attacking the button on my jeans. He was painfully hard, and he gasped when I touched his cock, groaned against my mouth as I stroked it. There were secrets I had learned about him, secrets I remembered, and I used every single one of them to make him incoherent with need, teasing him with my thumb, skimming my fingertips along his length. After a minute of this slow torture and some increasingly frustrated fumbling, he managed to get my pants undone, and he shoved them down past my hips even as he lifted his head to bury his face in my hair. His lips trailed biting, sucking kisses all over my throat, teeth scraping over my pulse. Then there was the sudden feel of his hand between my legs, rubbing me hard through the wet silk of my panties, and I inhaled sharply as he pushed them aside. Dispensing with the formalities, he slid two long fingers deep inside me, stretching me until I cried out, arching up against him, wrapping my legs around him.

He moved his fingers in and out, the motion almost rough, almost painful but in the way I'd always loved, and his thumb brushed my clit with just enough pressure to drive me insane. I moaned in frustration- I was wet, he was ready, this was taking too long- and guided him to me; he seemed to take the hint and withdrew his fingers, positioning the head of his cock to enter me. But then he paused for a moment, holding himself completely still, and murmured "This isn't fair of _me_," his lips forming the words on the skin of my neck as though he couldn't quite bring himself to remove them even to speak.

"I don't care," I answered, and it was true.

"Honor-" he began, finally raising his head, but I cut him off abruptly.

"Stop talking," I ordered or begged, writhing against him. "Just stop." And then I pulled his face to mine and kissed him deeply for the dual purposes of tasting him and shutting him up (remarkably effective on both counts).

Token resistance conquered, he finally pushed into me, and I tightened my legs around his waist, forcing him deeper. He pressed his tongue into my mouth, mimicking the actions of his lower body, and began to thrust in hard, measured strokes. Everything was rushed, hurried, with no slow buildup of pleasure. We were both already wound so tightly it wasn't necessary. His cock pounded into me faster and faster, with no subtlety or even any particular skill, but the angle was absolutely perfect, stimulating my clit until I literally couldn't take it anymore. I shattered in his arms, coming apart in ecstasy, and like everything else this feeling was sharper than I remembered, desperate and painful, transcendent. Even as I broke, he followed, coming inside me, and I held him hard to me, willing it to last just a little longer, just…

He rested himself against me for a moment, after, his cheek against mine, his breath warm on my skin. Then he moved his head slightly, framed my face with his hands, touched his trembling lips to my forehead for the briefest second before pulling away. This, more than anything else, felt like a farewell, and I closed my eyes tightly to hold back tears. I didn't have much pride left at this point, but I refused to cry in front of him, didn't want him to remember me as being so weak. When I opened them again, he was leaning back against the opposite wall once more, looking at me with an unfathomable expression on his face.

I looked at him and felt... Longing, a deep, deep longing to hold him to me and refuse to let him go, just refuse, because I couldn't, didn't want to. But he was already so far away. And if my heart hadn't been broken already, I think I'd have felt it break right then, looking at him, knowing I would never hold him again.

"I shouldn't have done that," he said quietly. "I… Didn't mean to. I'm sorry."

I attempted to smile, failed. "I'm not. I wanted…" _to hold you, you to hold me, to touch you, you to touch me, to love you, you to love me…_ "I don't know. To pretend, maybe."

There was a slight crack in his façade, just enough to show a hint of what might have been self-directed anger. "I didn't mean to be cruel."

This time, I did manage a smile, albeit a small one. That was the difference between us, I supposed. Last year, I had lashed out and hurt him just to keep myself safe, purposely, and a part of me had enjoyed it. And in spite of everything, Will worried about being cruel to me. I almost wished he would be; god knows I deserved it. "Please, Will. We both know you'd never mean to be cruel. Unlike me, you're incapable of it."

He just shook his head, pressing his lips into a thin, sad line.

I finished dressing in silence, watching him watching me, and I have no idea what he might have seen on my face because I have no idea exactly what I was feeling. Shock, probably; I was barely used to processing one emotion at a time, much less all of these conflicting ones. Opening the door, I knew I should leave, had to leave, because I had lost, but I just... Had to try, just once more, had to, and I didn't care how desperate it made me look; it could hardly make me look more desperate than I felt, because desperation was tearing me up from the inside out. I turned back to him.

"I could forgive you for this, you know," I whispered, willing my voice not to break. "For all of this, if you wanted me to. Please change your mind. Come to me before I leave."

He shook his head again, refused to meet my eyes. "I want to forget you."

God, those words hurt just as much as the first time he'd said them, because they implied that he regretted ever knowing me, that he wished he could erase me from his life. And he probably did. I wouldn't blame him for it. "Then I hope you can," I responded, and I meant it, really meant it, even though the thought of it killed me. "I just… I hope you're happy. That you will be."

I waited a moment, wishing he would look at me, say something, anything, but he didn't. _Will, don't do this._ But he was, and I didn't have any choice in the matter. So I left. And I swear to you I didn't cry until I got back to the hotel. Much.

**TBC**


	26. Makeup

_For _jilly74, mattyfresh _(x2 for rereading!)_, PlainJane1_ (x2 for rereading!), _Wemmamazing_ and _someWhereinRoma_. Thank you so much for your continued support! I shall continue to endeavor to be worthy of it. Also, apparently many people are owed imaginary fruit baskets, I had no idea there was so much evangelizing going on! Awesome :)_

_And of course, as always, for _**traceit**_. Lately she's had to deal with my constant freakouts, but always manages to give me the perfect advice for each situation. She's my hero, seriously!_

**26**

The next three days were about as difficult as you'd expect, or perhaps a little more than that. While the pain was comparable to what I'd experienced the year before, this time around it felt more irrevocable and was much harder to escape, even briefly. At least in Los Angeles, the devastation was completely internalized; there were no outside reminders of him, no memories triggered by any of my surroundings, nothing that even hinted at his existence from Calabasas to Anaheim. Lima, on the other hand, was miniscule in comparison, and nearly every street held some memories of him, even if they were only imaginary. But surely he'd visited that liquor store, eaten at that restaurant, shopped at that mini mall sometime throughout the course of his life, and I could picture him everywhere so clearly.

To make matters even worse, as though they weren't painful enough, I couldn't shut down for even a single second. When I'd returned to Los Angeles the year before, I'd literally spent the first two weeks home doing absolutely nothing (unless you consider watching reality television and eating tofutti cuties _something_, which I do not). But I wasn't visiting Lima for my health. I was working, and I had obligations to meet from sunrise to sunset and beyond, every second meticulously scheduled by Odessa in order to keep me away from Will, ironically enough. It was physically painful to me, rising at dawn three mornings in a row, visiting spots of local interest, posing for photo ops, signing autographs, giving out prizes in a local science fair, smiling, smiling, smiling, when inside I knew I was just falling apart, completely unraveling.

Emma was kind enough not to say _I told you so_, or perhaps genuinely felt no need to do so, being the incarnation of all that was good and pure and whatever. But she felt awful that her advice had led to this. She begged me to let her call him and talk some sense into him, but I refused. I hadn't given her all the details, but I told her enough that she understood it was a hopeless case. The fact was that it was over, everything was over, or at least felt like it was. How it was possible to go on living when I felt so destroyed, I wasn't entirely sure, and please forgive me for being so emo but this was honestly the crisis I experienced. As far as I was concerned, those three days were the first in an infinite line of impossible seconds spent without any hope at all.

The only light at the end of the tunnel was the concert, not because I was especially excited about it (understatement) but because I planned to step off that stage and onto a plane and fly as far away from Lima and Will and all the ghosts and memories as humanly possible. And never, ever return. For such an innocuous little Midwestern town, Lima had managed to ruin my life at least twice and that was two times too many. Clearly it was time to avoid Ohio for good.

When the day of the concert arrived, it was a relief to feel… Well, anything other than disconsolate, really, but relief itself was sweet. I was relieved by the knowledge that in less than 24 hours I'd be somewhere far away. If I could just get through those few hours, things might possibly become just a little easier. That thought gave me a kind of frantic energy, allowed me to move through the day on fast forward only to find myself suddenly standing on the side of the stage, hidden from the crowd, watching Edrington's set. It was freezing, and I was shivering in my brief costume, and how I'd gotten there was a complete mystery.

Before I could contemplate that worrying fact, Odessa came up behind me, placed her hands on my shoulders, squeezed almost imperceptibly. "You look beautiful," she said, stepping around to face me, giving me an encouraging smile, and I responded with a very pale imitation of a grateful one.

"This will be fine, you know," she murmured. "All of this. The show is going to be amazing, Norah. There are 40,000 people in that field out there, all of them screaming for you. You're going to bring them to their knees with what you've written. I know it."

There was a time when that thought would have excited me, when the adoration of crowds would have been enough, would have been all the love I needed. I'd loved that they loved me, and I didn't have to love them back. Now I understood that the kind of love they offered wasn't the kind of love I'd always craved, understood how empty everything was.

Shaking her head at my lack of response, Dess sighed. "Look, you won't tell me what happened Wednesday night and that's fine. Something awful, obviously. But you can't let that hold you back now. You have a show to put on, and you owe it to all of these people to fucking do it."

"I know," I answered. "I know. And I will, I swear. I just… I don't know how I'll manage it."

She gave me a smile, the encouraging one again. I did not feel especially encouraged. "You put all your emotions into the new album and it's… Brilliant, far more brilliant than I ever really gave you credit for. If you can use these emotions you're feeling now, put them into your performance… No one will ever forget this show."

"I don't know if I can do it that way, Dess," I whispered. "I can't stand to feel them as it is… How can I show them to anyone else?"

"I think you have to," she said, and I hated that she was right. "But listen, you should at least go acknowledge the glee kids' existence, they're nervous and alone. I mean, 40,000 people… I think that's more than the population of the entire town, might be just a tad intimidating." She left the _And oh by the way you completely ditched both of your scheduled rehearsals with them_ out, but I knew she was thinking it and I did feel guilty about it. Those rehearsals had been the only responsibilities I'd avoided, just because I couldn't bear to be reminded of their teacher.

"Is Will…?" I asked, trailing off, but she knew what I wanted to know.

"I said _alone_," she reminded me. "Though your friend Emma is around here somewhere, I think she's here to keep an eye on them from afar. One of the kids told me Will said he couldn't make it, but he knows they'll be incredible."

I wasn't sure if I was pleased to hear this or not. When I'd first heard his kids would be performing, first assumed he'd be there, I'd been upset because I couldn't bear the thought of him hearing the emotions I'd put into my new songs. But after what had happened three nights ago, that wasn't really an issue anymore; he knew all of those things because I'd told him straight out, without musical backing of any kind. Part of me thought that maybe if he'd come, if he could hear those same words sung for 40,000 people, know it was all for him… Maybe I'd sing the exact combination of phrases that would change his mind. It would have been a chance, maybe, but a very small one, and I really doubted I could handle another failure. Perhaps it was for the best. And yet…

"Do you think I'll ever stop feeling this way?" My voice was wistful as I considered the possibility.

If Dess was surprised by my sudden change of subject, she didn't show it. "What way?"

"Like if I could just see him again, for even a single second, everything would be okay," I told her.

"I fucking hope so," she muttered. "Seriously, Norah, you have to get your head in the game. You've got 20 minutes until you play the biggest show of your life. Um, no pressure or anything," she added.

I nodded, tried to focus, tried to do the one thing I'm good at and push everything away, everything except the thought of the performance I was about to give. "Okay. How's my hair?"  
Dess snorted, looking at the short, low cut sequined black dress that was my stage costume. "With that oufit, no one will be looking at your hair."

This surprised a laugh from me, a small one, but it was something. "Fair enough. How's the makeup?"

"You look like a porn star," she assured me, as though that were a good thing, then took my hand to lead me to the back. "Let's go."

I took a deep breath, nodded again, forced myself to smile. We stepped down off the risers and several flashbulbs exploded, bright points of light that blinded me until I couldn't see the faces of the reporters or photographers responsible. My smile widened and I waved, following Odessa as she maneuvered me through the small crowd to where the glee kids waited. They looked uncomfortable in the black suits and sequined ties someone had decided were a good idea and over-awed by their surroundings, not that I blamed them. Still smiling, I approached them. "I'm so sorry I haven't been out to say hello sooner."

Kurt raised his eyebrows at me, looking deeply offended. "Mr. Schuester isn't here," he said, his tone accusatory, and I remembered how he'd threatened me last year, how fiercely he'd protected Will. He'd said if I hurt him I'd regret it, and my god had he been right.

_I know_. "I'm sorry to hear that, I'd looked forward to meeting him." I was doing my best to keep up the charade we'd sold to the press, of course, but I hadn't thought for a moment that the kids wouldn't have figured out the truth by now.

Kurt and the others rolled their eyes. "Oh, please."

"Look, it's none of our business," Mercedes began, though her tone almost shouted that she believed it was, "but can't you just take him back and put us all out of our misery? Because Mr. Schue is _clearly_ miserable."

God, if only it were that easy. I fought the urge to respond by either telling her that she was right and it really wasn't her business, or that she should be having this conversation with him because I wanted nothing more than to take him back. Neither statement was appropriate, I believed. Additionally, being reminded of him just as I'd nearly put him from my mind wasn't helping matters. Was he miserable? Did I want him to be? Could he- But no, Odessa was right, I had to focus, had to get my head in the game.

"Why don't we talk about what's going to happen during the grand finale tonight?" I suggested after a moment of extremely awkward silence. "I'm so sorry I missed our rehearsals, there were some scheduling conflicts… But I've seen information on the routine and I'm really excited about it, it's going to be amazing."

"Yes," Rachel agreed, saving me. "It's simple enough; the fact that you were unable to attend the scheduled rehearsals should hopefully not impact the performance." She gave me a stern look, and I realized I'd just been put firmly in my place by a 16 year-old girl. "We enter directly before _Less Than You Settled For_ and perform a dance routine in the background. Then, on _Summerview_, we'll provide backing vocals."

I nodded as Rachel grew silent, looking at me expectantly along with all the rest, and it occurred to me that in their teacher's absence, it fell to me to say something reassuring or inspiring or something. "Right," I began, thinking frantically. "I'm not especially good at speeches, especially encouraging ones; I'm sure Wi- Mr. Schuester is great at them. All I can say is that you are all incredibly talented, and I'm proud to share a stage with you. And I hope by the end of the night you'll be able to say the same about me," I added wryly.

Rachel nodded at me, prompting me to continue, but I had nothing to continue with. What else could I possibly say?

"Do you have… Any advice?" she asked, leading me, realizing I had no idea what she expected this pathetic excuse for a pep talk to contain. "For those of us who might be… Frightened? Not that I am, of course, but those without my extensive experience might be."

I got the impression that the rest of them would have liked to scoff at her, but were honestly too nervous themselves to do so.

"Um," I stammered. "Uh, don't be?" _Oh yes, very comforting._ "Um. I have a mantra, I made it up before my very first show… I just close my eyes and imagine myself on stage, and think _Your songs. Your guitar. You can do this. You can do this._" The kids all looked at me blankly. "Um, that specific mantra might not work for… Uh, anyone who isn't me, I guess, but the point is, just remind yourself of your talent, of your skill. You're here for a reason. Trust in yourself, you won't fail."

They all looked ever so slightly comforted by this, which was kind of exciting. Rachel nodded once more, indicating I should continue in this vein, but really that was the only advice I had, the only advice I'd ever followed. I was wracking my brain for something else to say, maybe something I'd heard in some kind of underdog-wins-the-day Disney movie (_Mighty Ducks_? Were these kids even old enough to have seen _Mighty Ducks_?), when one of the stage hands signaled to me. "Edrington is on their last song," he informed me, and I nodded then turned back to the kids.

"Well, um… Wish me luck? I can't wait to see you guys out there." They all seemed cheered, both by my brief advice and by the idea that I wanted them to wish me luck, and they all did as I returned to my former position at the side of the stage. I stood alone, watching the Edrington quartet finish their performance, trying to clear my mind. A tech handed me my guitar, which I put on with a smooth, practiced motion, calmed by the weight of it against me, the neck in my hand. _Your songs, your guitar… You can do this. You can do this._ I hadn't used that mantra in years, but like the familiarity of my instrument, it helped me focus and god knows I needed all the help I could get. And then the song was over, and Elliott Edrington was coming straight at me, glaring as he was wont to do when forced into my company.

Without thinking, I grabbed his arm. "Elliott…"

"What?" he snapped, voice brittle, and I felt a twinge of conscience when I realized how much I deserved his animosity. How little I deserved his forgiveness or anyone else's, how unworthy I was, really, of someone like Will. Not just because of what I'd done to him, but because of what I'd done to everyone for a distressingly large portion of my life.

"You were great out there, really great," I said, taking a deep breath, steeling myself. "And I just want you to know, everything that happened… What I did to you… I'm sorry, genuinely sorry. I had no right."

He stared at me, his angry expression morphing into one of shock, which made sense because I'd just shocked the hell out of myself. But it was the kind of thing Will would have done, and I felt better, lighter somehow, thinking I'd done at least one thing he might approve of. It was strange, how just knowing him had changed me, made me want to be better, for him, for myself. Now I understood that what I had done had hurt Elliott, hurt his career, his private life, everything, and I'd done it for no reason at all, and it had been wrong of me, completely wrong. I hoped he knew from those few words how genuinely remorseful I was.

There was a long silence before Elliott finally nodded, once, then tilted his head toward the stage. "You'd better get out there." Okay, it wasn't forgiveness, but it was some kind of start. And honestly, it felt good. I nodded in return before focusing once more on what I was about to do. The crowd was chanting my name, or what was sometimes my name, Romans at the Coliseum, screaming for blood. My blood, my pain, in musical form, and with the new material they would certainly get it. _Your songs, your guitar… You can do this. You can do this._

"Okay. Okay."

I took a deep breath and ran out on stage.

**TBC**

_Just a quick note... You guys have gotten fairly spoiled with daily updates, but I want to let you know it might be a few days before I post the next chapters. I really want to post 27, 28, 29 and 30 together, but I'm not fully finished. I'm going to try my level best to take care of it all tomorrow, and post all four chapters tomorrow night, but I also don't want to rush it. So try not to be too upset... You'll have four chapters to read at once soon enough!_


	27. Worse

A quick note: I know I promised you four chapters, and that was the original plan. But then **traceit** pointed out that I could accomplish the exact same thing with just these two. If you WANT me to post the extra material, let me know and I will. But really I think **traceit's** solution is far more elegant :)

_For _Wemmazing, mattyfresh, fadedglass, Greys, Valentinas, PlainJane1_ and the very impatient _someWhereinRoma_ ;) Thank you so much for all your feedback and encouragement; I could never have gotten so far without you! Also for _jilly74_, who was kind enough to give me a shout-out in her excellent story _Falling Away_. All you Wemma fans will love it!_

_Last but never least, for _**traceit**_. Honestly, honestly, honestly, if you enjoyed this story at all, it's only because of her. I would have messed everything up so badly without her guidance._

**27**

I could tell you about the show in minute detail, because no matter what else is going on in my life I always remember every second of every time I've ever been on stage. The way I moved, the way I sang, which chords I dropped, which notes I missed… All of these things are stored in my head, and I torture myself with all my mistakes on the rare occasions that I have nothing else to torture myself with. So I could tell you that I followed Odessa's advice, fixed Will's face before me in my mind's eye and opened a new vein, each more painful than the last, for every song I sang. And I could tell you that Odessa was right, that I brought 40,000 people to their knees with my new material, that the crowd screamed more and more ecstatically with every debut, that they loved the pain and loved me and couldn't stop chanting my name. Hell, I could even tell you that the glee kids destroyed their two numbers, that they upstaged me completely, that they impressed everyone, that the various label reps who'd come to monitor the show were giddy with the thought of snatching all of them up before the competition even got a chance. But that's boring, and anyway the most important thing about this show is the thing that didn't happen: Will did not show up at the very last minute, charge on stage, gather me into his arms and declare his undying love for me, which, despite having no reason to expect, I'd apparently secretly hoped would come to pass, at least based upon how devastated I felt when the evening was over and everything was packed up and I was alone on the nearly empty stage. He didn't come.

"Norah, we're all heading back to the hotel for the afterparty, are you coming?" Odessa asked, crouching down beside me where I sat dangling my legs off the edge. It wasn't really a question, though, because as far as she was concerned the answer wasn't in doubt.

I looked up at her, shivering in my postage-stamp size costume, and shocked her by shaking my head. "I'm going to stay here for a while, Dess."

"Absolutely not," she denied, shaking her head right back. "You're going to come back to the trailer, put on some real clothes and congratulate those kids on kicking some serious ass. And then you're going to come back to the hotel and get wasted like any self-respecting rock star. Maybe later you can throw a TV out a window or something."

Smiling wryly, I shook my head. "Sounds like a party, but I think I'll pass. I just need to clear my head, you know? Have Anton stay behind, he can drive me back in a bit."

Dess glared down at me. "I don't like this idea at all. Just come back with us. You've really been treating the glee kids horribly, you know."

I hung my head guiltily, because there was so much justice in the claim. Will would be ashamed of me, undoubtedly, but then… I mean, he already was, it's not like his opinion of me could get any lower. "I know. But I'll make it up to them. I will, I swear. They don't need me anyway, I saw Carter and Louise sucking up to them, by this time tomorrow they'll all have million dollar contracts if they want them."

"That's not the point," she told me. "The point is that it's not good for you to be sitting here by yourself in the cold, catching pneumonia and feeling depressed."

"Seriously. I just need some alone time, okay?" I tried to make this sound like a demand but I couldn't; I just sounded pathetic, really. "The party is going to be crowded and noisy and I need to decompress before I can deal with all that."

Laughing, I nudged her with my shoulder, almost knocking her off-balance. "Come on, Dess, I'm a musician. If I'm not sitting by myself feeling depressed I'm not doing my job."

"You're impossible," she muttered, standing. There was a rustle of fabric and then I felt the warmth of her teal wool peacoat descending upon me as she draped it over my shoulders. "Fine. But I'm going to have Anton come get you in 30 minutes, and I'm going to authorize the use of lethal force to bring you back to the hotel. Dead or alive, I'll say."

"If I show up dead it defeats your purpose," I reminded her.

She shrugged. "Depends on the purpose, now, doesn't it? Please, Norah. Don't… I mean, that show… It should not be possible for you to feel this sad after a show like that."

"I know," I answered. "And yet…"

"Impossible," she repeated. "Fine. Sulk if you must. I'll see you back at the hotel. And remember, 30 minutes, or Anton comes up here with a Taser."

I smirked up at her. "Oh, you downgraded the lethality. I appreciate that."

"Shut up." She stalked off.

"Bye, Dess…" I called after her, and I could almost hear her giving me the finger as she walked away.

And then I was alone, just myself and my tumultuous thoughts, which is what I'd believed I wanted but now that I had it I wasn't so sure. I stared into the darkness of the cold Ohio night, the empty field full of the debris of the show, and remembered a time years and years ago when this was all I wanted, all I dreamed of, when I would have killed for the reality I didn't know my future would become. 40,000 people singing with one voice, singing words I had written, screaming and cheering and adoring me… I would have sold my soul for that. But they say _be careful what you wish for; you just might get it_ for a reason. Because this was all I'd wanted… And now it was all I had, all I'd ever have. Honestly, it was probably all I deserved, coldness, emptiness, debris in a frozen field. It would take a much less creatively inclined person than I am to see that field as a terrifying metaphor for the rest of my life. All I could do was think _He didn't come, he didn't come, he didn't come._ Which meant that was it. I was really leaving in the morning… I would really never see him again. He would really forget me, really be glad of it. And I'd spend the rest of my life singing about him and thinking about him and god this was going to kill me.

I rubbed my hand across my face, turned to the side, grabbed my acoustic guitar. There was a song I'd meant to play, a song I'd wanted to play, but in the end I just hadn't felt capable of it, so I'd cut it. It was the song I'd begun writing the last time I was in Lima, the useful little piece of music I'd once accidentally played for Will, and more than any other song from the upcoming album it made me think of him. Still not sure why. Maybe because it wasn't really sad on its own, maybe because I didn't want to remember him in a way that made me unhappy, if such a thing was possible. Strumming idly, I picked out the melody, couldn't help singing, glad there was no one to hear because my voice was shot and I couldn't make it sound as upbeat as it was meant to.

"_From the moment I saw you/ I knew that you would be/ A beautiful distraction/ Just the distraction that I needed/ Just the distraction that I need,_" I sang, smiling nostalgically as I remembered the first time I saw him, how naïve I'd been to think that was all he'd be. "_And I said/ 'Will you come away with me tonight?'/ And you said 'Fine,'/ And I looked in your eyes/ And it was right/ So we went…_"

My fingers fumbled a bit, missed the chord change ("Ladies and gentlemen, the great Norah Castle!"); it was cold, and they were stiff and frozen, but I made it into the chorus somehow. "_That's when everything changed/ That's when you became/ More than I could ever say/ More than everything/ More than anything to me._"

And oh god the lyrics were so sappy, but what made it worse was the fact that they were true. I shook my head, laughed at myself, missed another change, my fingers too slow to pull it off, and pretty much faked my way into the bridge. "_I know there's a million reasons to run/ Between the two of us/ And only one to stay/ But I don't/ I don't/ I don't/ And I know I won't/ Have the willpower/ To walk away…_" And then I laughed out loud, because in the end that hadn't really been a problem, had it? My willpower had nothing to do with it one way or the other. And anyway, it was too fucking cold to play the guitar, so I set it aside.

There were footsteps behind me, and I checked my watch with a frown. "Anton, it's barely been 10 minutes, Dess promised me 30."

He didn't respond and I turned slightly, freezing when I saw a pair of shoes and jeans that were definitely not part of Anton's uniform. Suddenly, every nerve ending in my body was alert, my muscles rigid as though preparing to flee (which maybe I was), and I could feel a new tension in the air, a kind of electromagnetic field crackling between the two of us like static or lightning, pulling us together. I wanted to shout that it wasn't fair, that it was too cruel for him to show up just when I'd finally accepted he wouldn't, just when I'd let any and all hope go. Now I didn't even know what I was feeling; I think I wanted to be hopeful again but wouldn't let myself. And oh god did he hear my song?

"What's the reason to stay?" Will asked, confirming my worst fear, moving my guitar to sit next to me. Just the sound of his voice, that sweet, clear voice I thought I'd never hear again, filled me with a wave of grief, and his proximity sharpened it. He was close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off of him, but not close enough that we were touching, and I wasn't sure if I should move closer or move away so I did neither.

Instead I looked down at my hands, folded in my lap, to avoid staring at him, though really I'd never wanted to do anything more. My heart was pounding and my mind was racing, and I had been so sure he wasn't coming that I'd let go of whatever mental preparations I'd made for anything else. I could hardly breathe through my panic. "What are you doing here, Will?" I ignored his question completely, because the answer was so obvious.

He turned his head, and I could feel him look at me. "I couldn't stay away."

I wanted to think that he meant he couldn't stay away from me, but again, I wouldn't let myself. Besides, it was obvious enough why he'd come; I'd known he'd never leave his kids to face a show that huge alone. "Well the kids have left already, they're on their way to the afterparty," I informed him, voice clipped with the effort of not pleading with him to take me back. "It's at the Courtyard Inn and Suites, the finest Lima has to offer. You're welcome to go."

"Are you going?" He was closer now somehow, the side of his arm just barely brushing mine, and I felt that slight touch throughout my entire body. Why was he doing this? Hadn't Wednesday night been hard enough?

"Don't worry," I told him, moving away slightly. "I'm not if you are."

"Is Lima not big enough for the both of us, then?" And he was close again.

"Ohio's not big enough for the both of us, Will. Not as far as I'm concerned." I muttered, edging away once more. "But it will be fine, I'm leaving in the morning."

"Wait-" he sighed, reaching out to cover my hand with his, and I stood abruptly, turned my back to him as though if I couldn't see him he didn't exist.

"What do you want, Will?" I choked out, trying to suck oxygen into my paralyzed lungs. Honestly, I was just so afraid, because I didn't think I could survive hearing him say he wanted to forget me again. Knew I couldn't. "Because this isn't a great time right now. If you have anything else to say, you're welcome to get in touch with my representatives."

I heard him stand, and then he was behind me, one hand stroking my hair, the other resting lightly on my shoulder. His touch felt healing, and I hated him for that, hated that I had to lean into him. "I want you to answer my question," he responded when I didn't break free of his grasp. "What's the reason to stay?"

"You know the answer," I whispered, humiliated. "You told me. There isn't one, not for you. Do we have to do this again? Once was bad enough."

"Honor, please-"

"Don't call me that," I demanded, turning to face him. It was a choice I regretted immediately, because I was so close to him, and as the full force of his beauty hit me I felt an overwhelming desire to throw myself into his arms, one I ordered myself to deny.

He smiled slightly, shook his head. "I'm not going to call you anything else."

I rolled my eyes at his expression, ignored the softness in it. "Well that works out perfectly. Don't call me anything. I have to go." And I did. I had to escape, had to be free of his presence, because the longer I was close to him the more I wanted to throw myself at his feet and beg. But I wouldn't. I'd done that already.

"Where?" Reaching for me, he pulled me close and held me against him, and I didn't try to free myself because… I didn't want to. It felt too good to be in his arms, and, well, I didn't have the willpower not to be, just one last time. "Where else do you have to be?"

"Away." I looked up into his face, into his dark hazel eyes, and refused to allow myself to read anything in them. "As far away from you as possible."

"Don't," he breathed, caressing my cheek. "Please don't."

Avoiding his touch, I finally attempted to pull away from him, not that it made much of a difference, since he refused to release me. "Now you're not being fair," I accused, fighting to keep my voice from breaking. "You've told me how you feel. I understand it, I respect it, I don't blame you. But it is not fair of you to come here like this, do this to me… And I know life isn't fair but I always thought you would be."

"Honor-" he began, and this time my anger gave me the strength to break his hold on me… His physical hold, at least.

"I told you not to call me that," I said, backing away, thinking that if he said my given name in that gentle tone one more time I'd be crying in his arms before he could finish the second syllable.

He advanced on me, took my upper arms in a firm but not painful grip, and looked at me very seriously. "And I told you I'm not going to call you anything else. Everyone in the entire world can use your stage name, I don't care, but the woman I fell in love with is named Honor and that's what I'm going to call her."

I closed my eyes tightly against the wave of emotion that washed over me at his words. But I didn't believe them, couldn't let myself believe them, no matter how desperately I wanted to. This was clearly a fantasy or a dream or a hallucination, perhaps brought on by the fact that I was slowly freezing to death; it could not possibly be reality, because in reality I knew I wasn't worthy of love, and especially not his. "I have to go."

Wrapping his arms around me, he pressed his cheek to mine. "Don't, please, please don't. Don't go anywhere I can't follow," he murmured, and the tenderness in his voice was my undoing. A single tear escaped, practically freezing on my skin.

"Don't do this to me," I begged, shaking my head despite the fact that I knew he couldn't see it. He could feel it, and that was enough. "Please. God, please. I can't stand it."

"Just listen, okay? Just let me say what I came here to say, and then… If you still want to, tell me to go." He pulled away slightly, tipped my face up, carefully brushed the tear away. "I can't promise I will. But you can tell me."

I shook my head again. "Please. I told you I understood how you feel. I do. But I can't hear it again, Will. I'm not that strong, and you… I never thought you could be that cruel."

"I've been cruel to you," he admitted. "But I didn't mean to be. I'm not trying to be now. I just need you to listen, that's all. I'm not here to hurt you, I swear."

"But you _are_," I whispered. "Just seeing you hurts me."

He smiled, an almost imperceptible movement of his lips, a sad little quirk. "Seeing you doesn't hurt me. Seeing you makes me feel… Like everything could be alright again. If you'd just listen. I heard you out, Honor," he reminded me. "Maybe my reaction wasn't what you wanted, but I heard what you had to say. Be fair to me."

"This isn't a negotiation, Will," I snapped. "I'm under no obligation to stand here and listen to you tell me how much I hurt you. I _know_ I hurt you. I can't forget it, and I don't need you to remind me."

"You did hurt me. Badly," he stated, and I felt a painful twisting in my chest at his tone, half broken and half confused, like he didn't entirely understand how it had happened. Which I could relate to, because I couldn't understand it either. "And this last year has been… Like you said. Empty. But I think… I think it's different for me, because my life was never empty like that before. And then suddenly you were gone and it's like everything else was gone too. It scared me, okay? Still scares me," he added. "And when you just showed up three nights ago, I didn't know how to react. All I could think was that I had to protect myself, because what you did to me… I couldn't go through it again."

And how on earth did he think hearing this wouldn't hurt me all over again? I tried to pull away from him. "Stop, please, I understand-"

He silenced me with a finger laid gently on my lips, held me in place with his other hand. "Don't. Let me just…" Trailing off, he attempted to gather his thoughts, and the look of concentration on his face was… _endearing_, or would have been if I wasn't feeling so traumatized. "I thought the only thing that could hurt worse than what you did to me last year would be you doing something similar again. I thought sending you away would keep me safe."

"Stop," I begged, my lips moving against his finger like a kiss. "Please stop."

"But hurting you…" he continued, inexorably. "Seeing your pain, knowing I caused it… That was worse. And the very worst was realizing it was pointless. I used to think I wanted to be with you, in some vague kind of way, but now I know I _need_ to be. I love you. God, I love you, and I can't send you away because you're-" he laughed suddenly, shook his head. "I sound like a greeting card. But I can't help it. You're in my heart, okay? And in my mind and my soul and I can't… Can't get rid of you. I tried. For a year I tried. For the last three days I tried. And I don't want to try anymore."

The way I felt after he said this is… Very difficult to explain. It was as though everything in the world stopped, my thoughts, my heart, my lungs, everything, and I was just completely immobile, inanimate, incapable of any reaction for several endless seconds. And then I was crying, really crying, in a way I hadn't since I was young, gasping, sobbing, burying my face against his chest.

"Honor, please," he whispered as he stroked my hair. "Please don't cry. I don't mean to make you unhappy. I'll go, I'll go… If you tell me it's what you want, I'll go away and you'll never see me again."

I looked up at him, water still streaming down my face, and shook my head. "No. _No_. Don't you dare. You had your chance to get rid of me, you didn't take it… And now you have to deal with the consequences."

He began to smile as though he wasn't sure he should. "And what might those b-"

The end of his question was cut off as I touched my mouth to his. Without hesitation he crushed me to him, his arms wrapped around my waist so tightly it should have hurt, and deepened the kiss until I could taste him even through the salt of my tears. It was the kind of kiss with serious potential, the kind of kiss that could easily develop into all manner of intriguing activities. But suddenly, a rogue thought came unbidden to my mind, and I pulled away from him.

"What?" he asked, worried. "Did I do something wrong?"

I shook my head, smiling up into his beautiful, beloved (if somewhat confused) face. "You know something? You're worse than I am," I said, and I was actually giggling, god help me. "I thought my songs were cheesy, but that… That whole speech, that was worse."

He grinned, the expression breaking over his face bright like the dawn. "Oh, it was, was it?"

"Absolutely," I answered, and just felt… Light. In both senses of the word, as in the opposite of heavy, but also as in sunlight or daylight or… Any kind of light, warm and radiant and filling me until I'm sure I glowed with it.

Looking deep into my eyes, he framed my face with his hands. "Shut up."

I raised my eyebrows, bit my lip suggestively. "Shut me up."

…And he did, until the last hint of salt was nothing more than a memory.

**FIN**

_But wait, there's more..._


	28. Keeping Tabs

**28**

_Keeping Tabs_  
12.10.10

_**KT **_**Plays Matchmaker In New Norah Castle Sex Scandal!**

World famous singer Norah Castle has been working hard to rehabilitate her reputation after the steamy photos _KT_ printed a year ago, but we can exclusively report she hasn't cleaned up her act! The pictures below show her _en flagrante_ on stage after her Lima, Ohio concert… And the man with her is none other than William Schuester, the very same high school teacher we misidentified as her lover last year! When confronted with these photos, Castle merely grinned. "We met after I sent my personal attorney to assist him with the mess you made of that whole situation… But really, I should be thanking you!"

_Keeping Tabs_  
01.20.11

**Chart Topper**

…Grammy-winning recording artist **Norah Castle**'s fourth studio album, _Willpower_, has broken records by selling over 1.3 million copies in the US in its first week of release. This breaks the record set last year by **Taylor Swift**…

_Keeping Tabs_  
10.18.11

**Wedding Bells**

…On October 12, multi-platinum singer **Norah Castle** wed her high school-teacher fiancée, William Schuester, in a private ceremony in Lima, Ohio, where the couple resides. A rep for the songstress confirms, saying "The wedding was very small, with friends and family only in attendance. Norah and William are overjoyed and excited to be starting their new life together."…

_Keeping Tabs_  
02.05.12

**Surprise Hit**

…The single _The Key (Make Plans, Break Plans)_, featuring a duet between newlywed singer **Norah Castle** and her educator husband **William Schuester**, made a surprise appearance on the charts this week, debuting at number 3. This is sure to silence the naysayers, some of whom called Castle "nepotistic" and "delusional" for choosing her husband for the coveted duet. Many established musicians, including **Tanye Northeast**, had campaigned for the honor. At the time, she told _KT_ "I can understand why people are upset, but believe me, I know what I'm doing. I'm looking forward to saying 'I told you so.'" Go right ahead, Norah. All proceeds from sales of the single will benefit various educational charities…

_Keeping Tabs_  
12.20.12

**Worst Baby Names of the Year**

Celebrities have a tendency to bestow their offspring with unique names, oftentimes with disastrous consequences…

1. **Tetris** **Highscore Patrick**, unfortunate daughter of actress **Ellery Evans** and her rocker husband. "We lost a bet," the star admitted, adding "but actually it's kind of cool." Uh, if you say so.

2. **South Central Fernandez**, son of rap mogul **RappDoggG **(real name: Gabriel Fernandez) and wife Traci. "People name their babies after places all the time: Brooklyn, Charlotte, Bronx. I grew up in South Central," the top music producer said.

3. **Justice Virtue Castlereagh-Schuester**, son of record-breaking diva **Norah Castle** (whose full last name is Castlereagh) and her school teacher husband. "What? It's a name," she defended when asked. "Seriously, it is," adding, "It's a family thing."

4. **Hunkydorrie Samuels**, daughter of movie producer **Eli Samuels** and his partner David. "I think it's cute," the producer defended.

5. **Oohlah Jones**, daughter of actor **Jacob Bradley Jones** and wife stylist **Leah Crispin**. "I was still high from the epidural," Crispin explained, which is really the only excuse for _any_ of these names.

_Keeping Tabs_  
08.25.13

**Top Honors**

…**Will Schuester**, husband of singing sensation **Norah Castle**, was recently honored at the White House as Teacher of the Year for, among other things, his campaign to keep music programs alive in public schools. "I'm so proud of him," Norah tells _KT_, beaming. "I'm not surprised though. I mean, I've seen the man teach."…

_Keeping Tabs_  
12.22.14

**Worst Baby Names of the Year**

Another year, another list. When will these celebrities learn? Never, apparently, as there are two repeat offenders this year (we're looking at you, **Norah Castle** and **Ellery Evans**).

1. **Zanie Brainie Scott**, adopted daughter of Broadway star **April Rhodes** and husband playwright **David Scott**. "I suggested May," he sighed, "but April had her way in the end."

2. **Glee Glorianna Castlereagh-Schuester**, daughter of repeat offender **Norah Castle** and her educator husband. When asked to comment, Norah shrugged. "You'll have to ask Will… I was campaigning for 'Chastity' but he said that was only for strippers and prostitutes." Her husband's two cents? "'Glee by its very definition is about opening yourself up to joy.' I can't believe April knocked us out of the top spot. Maybe next year…"

3. **Cypriot Raleigh Collins**, son of comedian **Seth Collins** and his model wife **Illiana**. "It just sounds cool," the funnyman shrugged. "It's like a country or nationality or something."

4. **Teetime Par Gonzales**, son of record-breaking golfer **Javier Gonzales** and his wife Maria. "Golf was my life, now my son is my life. It made sense," he claims. Uh, sure.

5. **Pacman Atari Patrick**, son of long-suffering, repeat-offending actress **Ellery Evans** and her gambling addict musician husband. "I begged him to stop making bets with his bandmates," she confesses, "but they get him every time."


	29. By Popular Demand

_First of all, I have to thank everyone SO MUCH for all the lovely reviews! I do a lot of writing, but __**A Million, Two, One **__is the first thing I've ever finished and I never could have done it without all of you inspiring me! _Traceit, Sierra-Jae, Wemmazing, mattyfresh, jilly74, christierrr, someWhereinRoma, PlainJane1, DoRaM, Dementedx, Valentinas, fadedglass _and __, you are all my favorite people in the world._

_Anyway, from all the reviews and PMs I've been receiving, it seems as though some of you would like a version of this story from Will's perspective, and I am all about giving the people what they want. This new story is called __**Willpower **__(shut up), and you can find it by title or by clicking on my name to see the other stories I've written. I would be honored if you would give it a chance. __**Traceit **__has kindly consented to continue assisting me, so hopefully there will be no drop in quality (but if there is I expect you to notify me immediately). I will also do my best to uphold my tradition of daily updates. I'm including the first chapter below._

**Willpower: Gravity**

**1**

The Liquor Box on East Elm was what my kids at McKinley would call _shady_, a grungy little hole-in-the-wall bar with no television, no food, no expensive microbrews and nothing whatsoever to recommend it to anyone, especially me, which strangely was exactly what had recommended it to me in the first place. It was all the way across town from my apartment, out of my district, the last place I'd ever expect to find anyone I knew, the last place anyone I knew would ever expect to find me. Those things made it perfect. I was a wreck, had been for the past week, but circumstances had made it impossible for me to just let go, fold in on myself and collapse under the weight of my despair, and I just needed… Somewhere to escape, I suppose, escape the watchful eyes of colleagues and students so I could fall apart. That was the first step, I knew. Before I could put myself back together, I needed to fall apart as thoroughly as my life had. And the Liquor Box was the perfect place, anonymous and safe, because it's one thing to drink until you can't see straight and everything fades away and another to do so while a student's parent watches, horrified, and don't ask me how I know, just trust me.

So I was at the Liquor Box, and I was drunk, which had been the goal, so that was nice. I wasn't quite drunk enough, but it was early yet, and every shot of whatever the bartender kept pouring me- and honestly, I have no idea what it was, I'm not a big drinker normally, it just tasted like burning- was wrapping me tighter and tighter into a comforting cocoon of I-don't-care and slowly turning down the volume on my inner monologue, and I had high hopes I'd soon forget my name and everything else that had forced me to the bar in the first place. While I wasn't quite at that point yet, I was certainly beyond the point of inhibition and common sense, either or both of which might have prevented me from volunteering to perform some karaoke for the three other patrons attempting to get as drunk as I was. But I'd volunteered because I'd wanted to, because for me singing is another way of letting go, and I needed to. Also because the bartender promised me a free drink when I was done, and the night had been pretty expensive as it was. And this is why I was singing on stage with deep emotion and very little technique the first time I saw her.

She entered the bar hesitantly, as though she wasn't really sure she wanted to, and glanced over at me with an almost resigned expression on her face, like _Of course I will be forced to listen to bad karaoke tonight, such a thing is inevitable_. Which was strange, and everything, but that isn't why I noticed her. There was just something about her, something that had nothing to do with the way she looked- though even from 50 feet away and in the dark I did note a strong resemblance to the artist whose song I was singing- but she was… _Sharp_. Despite the alcoholic haze I was swaddled in, despite the softness it imparted to everything in my field of vision, she was defined. I could _see_ her. And I threw myself even more completely into my song, not just because the words I was singing were the perfect vehicle to express the devastation I felt, but because I wanted her to look at me, wanted her to see me too.

For a moment, I think she did. She paused just inside the door, watched for a moment, cocked her head to the side, and even after she made her way to the bar itself I imagined I could feel her eyes on me. And as I finished the song, threw the full power of my anguish and my voice behind the soaring climax (my favorite part, a series of trilling high notes that hovered just below the ceiling of my range and made me feel like I was flying each time I hit them), I think I was singing as much for her as for myself. The words were powerful, painful, sharp like her outline, and why had I never realized before how desperately sad this song was? How had its upbeat tempo fooled me so completely? _And all the roads I've known will never lead me home to you… Without you, there's nowhere to go home to_. I felt a wave of longing roll through me, yearning so powerful it was physically painful, as I thought of the child I'd wanted so badly, the family that would have been my home, the family that didn't exist, and the song was perfect, perfect, perfect, and then it was over.

The final note hovered in the air for a moment, and I came back to myself slowly, felt her eyes on me again, and suddenly, unexpectedly, I was imagining an alternate reality where I stepped down off the stage and approached her, spoke to her, bought her a drink. It surprised me, almost confused me, because as drunk as I was, I couldn't imagine anything beyond that, even in an alternate reality. I was married, still, technically, not to mention the strangeness with Emma, and anyway I'd never in my life picked up a girl in a bar, had never wanted to, and I'm not saying I wanted to now. Necessarily. There was just something about her. That's all. And whatever it was made me dizzy, lightheaded in a way that had nothing to do with the alcohol I'd consumed, as I stepped down off the stage in the current reality, the real one, and made my way to the bar. To her. She drew me somehow with a force like gravity, and I stood next to her because gravity is a law of nature, alright, how was I supposed to resist? But I wouldn't speak to her. Couldn't. The alternate reality was alternate for a reason.

And then she spoke to me.

**TBC**

_I'm _desperate _to know what you think, but please, if you plan to review, submit it for the new story, not this one. Thank you!_


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